PRESENT  fORCES 

|?NEGRO  PROGRESS 

W.  D.WEATHERFORD,  PH.D. 


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PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO 
PROGRESS 


BOOKS  BY  W.  D.  WEATHERFORD 

"  Negro  Life  in  the  South" 50  cts. 

"  Introducing  Men  to  Christ  "     .....     50  cts. 


"  Fundamental  Religious  Principles  in  Browning's  Poetry"  $1.00 

"  Race  Relationships  in  the  South."  A  reference  library  of  seven 
volumes  compiled  and  edited  by  the  Author,  $5. 00,  carriage  extra. 


PRESENT  FORCES  IN 
NEGRO  PROGRESS 


W.  D.  WEATHERFORD,  PH.D. 


NEW  YORK:         124  East  28th  Street 

LONDON:  47  Paternoster  Row,  E.  C. 

1912 


E 


COPYRIGHT,  1912, 

BY  THE   INTERNATIONAL  COMMITTEE  OF 
YOUNG   MEN'S  CHRISTIAN   ASSOCIATIONS 


Dedicated  to  that  growing  company  of  interested  Southern  white  men  and 
to  that  group  of  sympathetic  men  in  the  North,  whose  united  interest 
in  the  Negro  Race  is  a  prophecy-of  a  better  day. 


253811 


ON  BEING  BROUGHT  FROM  AFRICA  TO  AMERICA 

'Twas  mercy  brought  me  from  my  pagan  land, 
Taught  my  benighted  soul  to  understand 
That  there's  a  God — that  there's  a  Saviour  too; 
Once  I  redemption  neither  sought  nor  knew. 
Some  view  our  sable  race  with  scornful  eye — 
"Their  color  is  a  diabolic  dye." 
Remember,  Christians,  Negroes  black  as  Cain 
May  be  refined,  and  join  the  angelic  train. 

—PhilKs  Wheatley. 


CONTENTS 

Preface  . 


CHAPTER  I. 

Traits  of  Negro  Character II 

CHAPTER  II. 

Race  Leadership  and  the  Growth  of  Race  Pride 33 

CHAPTER  III. 

Negro  Population  and  Race  Movements 59 

CHAPTER  IV. 

The  New  Type  of  Negro  Farmer 91 

CHAPTER  V. 

Improvement  in  Rural  Schools H7 

CHAPTER  VI. 

What  the  White  Churches  Are  Now  Doing  for  the 

Negro 145 

CHAPTER  VII. 

What  the  Associations  Are  Doing 167 

Bibliography    187 

Index  , .... 189 


PREFACE 

IN  venturing  on  this  second  volume  concerning  the  much 
vexed  question  of  race  relationships,  I  can  only  ask  the  same 
cordial  response  which  the  former  effort  elicited.  When 
"Negro  Life  in  the  South"  was  sent  out  to  the  college  men 
of  the  country,  it  was  with  the  greatest  misgivings.  I  am 
persuaded  that  not  the  merit  of  the  book  but  the  overmas 
tering  importance  of  the  subject  has  called  forth  a  response 
far  beyond  expectation.  Already,  more  than  ten  thousand 
college  men  in  the  South  have  used  this  little  volume  in  the 
study  groups  of  the  college  Young  Men's  Christian  Asso 
ciations.  Many  of  these  groups  have  asked  for  a  further 
study  of  this  subject,  and  it  is  in  response  to  this  call  that 
the  present  volume  is  sent  forth. 

I  am  greatly  indebted  to  the  large  number  of  students 
and  professors,  in  white  and  colored  schools  alike,  who  have 
helped  in  gathering  the  material  for  this  undertaking.  Also, 
I  must  express  my  appreciation  to  the  farm  demonstrators 
in  the  South,  superintendents  of  education  and  hosts  of 
others  who  have  so  fully  and  cordially  responded  to  my 
requests  for  facts. 

As  in  the  former  volume,  I  have  attempted  to  be  fair  to 
all  concerned.  The  supreme  need  of  the  hour  is  that  men 
shall  face  facts  rather  than  spin  theories.  No  sane  or  fair- 
minded  man  can  excuse  his  own  ignorance  of  so  important 
a  subject.  My  effort,  therefore,  has  been  to  state  conditions 
as  they  are,  even  though  such  statements  at  times  have 
seemed  harsh.  I  confidently  believe  that  all  well-wishers  of 
the  race  will  be  glad  to  face  these  facts  in  the  same  spirit 

(9) 


TO  PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS. 

of  fairness.  Perhaps  it  may  be  important  to  say,  as  in  the 
preface  to  the  former  volume,  that  the  author  is  a  Southern 
man,  educated  in  the  South,  and  now  living  and  working 
in  that  section,  where  he  has  a  chance  to  know  the  Negro 
as  he  is.  W.  D.  WEATHERFORD. 

Nashville,  Tennessee, 
May  I,  1912. 


CHAPTER  I 
TRAITS  OF  NEGRO  CHARACTER 


CHAPTER  I 
TRAITS  OF  NEGRO  CHARACTER 

PAUL,  the  seclusive  Jew,  but  also  the  Roman  citizen  and 
world  traveler,  long-  schooled  in  the  thought  and  spirit  of 
Jesus  Christ,  said  boldly  to  the  proud  Athenians  who 
thronged  him  on  the  Areopagus,  "God  has  made  of  one 
[blood]  every  nation  of  men  for  to  dwell  on  the  face  of  the 
earth."  The  dictate  of  deep  religious  conviction  has  settled 
down  into  the  firm  postulate  of  modern  anthropology.  Dar 
win's  "Origin  of  Species"  holds  that  all  forms  of  life  are 
descended  from  a  comparatively  few  simple  types,  and  that 
nature  by  a  process  of  selection  of  the  fittest  has  brought 
out  of  the  variations  of  individuals  a  series  of  species  fitted 
to  live  in  the  environment  in  which  they  find  themselves. 
Whatever  the  original  type  of  man  was — this  we  are  not 
here  interested  to  discuss — modern  anthropologists  are 
agreed  that  the  human  family  is  sprung  from  a  common 
origin,  and  hence  all  men  are  by  nature  akin.  The  differ 
ences  in  races  are  due  to  a  long  selective  process  extending 
over  thousands  of  years,  by  which  those  characteristics  of 
individuals,  which  best  fitted  them  to  the  environment  in 
which  they  lived,  become  more  and  more  accentuated, 
through  the  dying  out  of  all  those  individuals  who  did  not 
possess  such  characteristics. 

It  is  a  commonplace  fact  that  no  two  individuals  are 
alike,  and  this  was  no  less  true  in  the  dawn  of  the  human 
race  than  it  is  now.  Each  individual  had  certain  differ 
entiae  that  set  him  off  from  all  others.  Anthropologists 

(13) 


14     PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

believe  that  as  centuries  passed  by  and  as  men  moved  out 
into  different  environments,  those  men  possessing  certain 
of  the  more  prominent  differentiae  were  able  to  survive; 
hence  these  differentiae  combined,  owing,  doubtless,  among 
other  things,  to  climate  and  food  supply,  to  set  apart  one 
group  as  a  definite  type  or  race.  Other  specific  attributes 
surviving  and  becoming  more  prominent  in  a  different  en 
vironment  combined  to  set  apart  another  group;  and,  so  it 
happened  for  as  many  distinct  races  as  were  able  to  establish 
themselves  strongly.  Among  these  original  types,  most 
scholars  believe  that  the  white  man  of  Europe,  the  yellow 
man  of  Asia  and  the  black  man  of  Africa  held  the  prevailing 
places.  Later  the  mixing  of  these  groups  possessing  the 
stronger  characteristics  would  give  rise  to  secondary  racial 
types. 

Races  Fitted  for  Their  Environment. 

If  the  origin  of  race  characteristics  is  such  as  these 
scientists  believe  it  to  be,  then  one  can  readily  understand 
why  the  Chinese  are  better  able  to  survive  under  Asiatic 
conditions  than  are  other  races;  or  the  black  man  better 
able  to  survive  in  Africa  than  the  white  man;  for  through 
a  long  selective  process,  nature  has  picked  out  a  race  of  men 
in  each  case  whose  differentiae  have  best  fitted  them  to 
survive  under  specific  conditions.  Viewed  from  this  stand 
point,  the  yellow  man  is  the  fittest  for  Asia,  the  black  man 
is  the  fittest  for  Africa,  and  the  white  man  for  certain  other 
parts  of  the  earth.  Either  of  these  may  prove  less  fit  for 
the  environment  of  another  section.  But  unfitness  does  not 
necessarily  mean  inferiority.  A  white  man  may  be  far  less 
fitted  for  Africa  than  the  black  man,  but  the  former  is  not 
necessarily  inferior,  and  vice  versa.  Fitness  does  not  con 
sist  in  intellectual  ability  alone,  but  in  all  those  qualities 
which  combine  to  meet  the  environment  at  the  point  of 
highest  efficiency. 


TRAITS  OF  NEGRO  CHARACTER  15 

Environment  of  the  Negro. 

The  Negro  race  is  that  part  of  the  human  family  which 
found  its  development  and  formed  its  differentiating  char 
acteristics  in  the  tropical  sections  of  the  globe.  Therefore 
we  should  expect  that  physically  and  mentally  he  would  be 
so  constituted  as  best  to  survive  under  tropical  conditions. 
It  is  simply  impossible  to  understand  the  Negro  without 
taking  this  fact  into  account.  Unfortunately,  the  white  man 
has  usually  measured  the  Negro  by  his  own  standards,  and 
wherein  there  is  lack  of  conformity,  it  has  been  put  down 
to  the  discredit  of  the  Negro.  This  may  or  may  not  be  a 
fair  judgment  in  any  particular  instance.  The  one  im 
portant  thing  is  that  we,  as  white  men,  shall  come  to  under 
stand  sympathetically  what  the  Negro  really  is,  and  why 
he  is  and  what  he  is.  When  one  goes  down  into  the  slums 
and  sees  the  conditions  into  which  children  are  born,  he  at 
once  has  a  new  understanding  and  a  new  sympathy  for  the 
different  standards  of  those  children.  We  are  perfectly 
aware  that  this  early  environment  is  very  apt  to  color  the 
whole  life  of  the  man.  Likewise  when  one  looks  into  the 
tropical  conditions  where  a  great  race  was  conceived  by 
nature  and  born  and  nurtured  for  thousands  of  years,  one 
will  see  how  that  environment  has  been  inwrought  into  the 
very  fiber  of  the  being  of  that  race.  This  will  make  clear 
the  basis  of  those  characteristics  of  the  American  Negro 
wherein  he  differs  from  the  white  man. 

Frankness   Needed. 

In  a  discussion  of  this  kind  everything  is  to  be  gained 
by  a  frank  statement  and  nothing  is  to  be  lost.  It  is  far  more 
important  to  face  the  facts  than  to  make  a  case  either  for  or 
against  the  Negro  race.  The  worst  must  be  boldly  stated, 
the  best  must  be  gladly  seen.  The  first  will  be  humiliating 
to  the  best  Negroes  and  their  friends,  the  latter  will  be  dis 
comforting  to  the  demagogue  who  berates  the  whole  race. 


16  PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

But  I  am  persuaded  that  the  best  white  men  and  the  best 
Negroes  are  more  than  eager  to  see  conditions  just  as 
they  are.  I,  therefore,  make  bold  to  set  forth  simply,  but  I 
hope  clearly,  the  mental  and  moral  traits  of  the  Negro 
which  have  a  practical  bearing  on  the  relationship  of  the 
two  races  in  the  South.  It  is  to  be  noted,  of  course,  that  the 
white  man  possesses  many  or  all  of  these  characteristics  in 
greater  or  less  degree,  for  both  whites  and  blacks  started 
with  the  same  general  nature ;  but  the  environment  of  Africa 
has  accentuated  certain  characteristics  for  the  negro,  and 
the  environment  of  Europe  has  accentuated  others  for  the 
whites.  Therefore,  we-  are  not  attempting  to  point  out 
those  characteristics  which  set  him  off  completely  from  all 
other  races,  but  we  are  trying  to  make  a  brief  inventory 
of  his  weaknesses  and  his  strength.  First,  let  us  face  frank 
ly  some  of  his  outstanding  weaknesses.  To  the  negro  race 
these  should  be  a  challenge  to  improvement,  for,  as  John 
Fiske,  speaking  from  a  scientific  standpoint,  has  so  well 
said :  "The  most  essential  feature  of  man  is  his  improvable- 
ness,"  and  with  this  quality  no  race  or  individual  can  be 
hopeless.  On  the  other  hand,  to  the  white  man  these  darker 
facts  should  be  a  challenge  to  sympathetic  helpfulness. 

Lack  of  Self-Control. 

Perhaps  the  characteristic  in  which  the  Negro  differs 
most  radically  from  the  white  man  is  in  lack  of  self-control. 
By  this  we  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the  white  race,  or  any 
individual  in  it,  has  perfect  self-control.  No  man  who  has 
half  tried  to  live  a  decent  life  has  failed  to  observe  his 
weakness  in  this  regard.  Nor  does  it  mean  that  there  are 
no  Negroes  who  have  a  high  degree  of  poise  and  self-mas 
tery.  We  mean  simply  that  the  Negro,  as  a  race,  has  not 
so  far  developed  what  the  psychologists  call  the  power  of 
inhibition.  He  cannot  forego  the  pleasure  of  present 
gratification  in  order  that  he  may  reap  an  increased,  but 


TRAITS  OF  NEGRO  CHARACTER  ij 

a  far-off,  reward.  To  him  the  future  has  little  meaning. 
While  he  has  an  extravagant  imagination,  it  has  too  little 
power  of  synthesis  to  be  able  to  relate  properly  the  facts 
of  self-denial  and  future  reward  so  that  the  latter  becomes 
a  living  reality.  In  other  words,  he  is  much  like  the  child 
who  has  not  yet  learned  to  center  attention  on  any  one  thing 
long  enough  to  create  an  abiding  interest  sufficiently  strong 
to  overcome  the  pressing  interest  of  the  immediate  hour. 
Viewed  from  this  standpoint,  education  is  simply  the  train 
ing  of  the  child  in  the  art  of  such  continued  attention  as 
will  enable  it  to  give  a  proper  valuation  to  far,  as  well  as  to 
near  events.  Likewise,  the  progress  of  civilization  is  just 
the  growth  of  the  cruder  types  of  men  into  the  ability  to 
restrain  their  present  desires  or  appetites  for  the  sake  of 
a  larger  future  good,  either  for  themselves  or  for  the 
community. 

Explanation  of  This  Lack  of  Self-Control. 

Some  reasons  for  this  lack  of  self-control  are  not  far 
to  seek,  when  one  looks  into  tropical  environment.  One  of 
its  commonest  manifestations  is  what  we,  in  common  par 
lance,  call  laziness.  The  future  reward  is  not  vivid  enough 
to  induce  a  man  to  lay  aside  his  present  ease  that  he  may 
attain  a  larger  good  in  the  future.  This  habit  of  self-indul 
gence  would  be  greatly  accentuated  in  a  tropical  climate, 
where  the  abundant  hand  of  nature  supplies  most  of  the 
actual  necessities  of  food  and  clothing.  Furthermore,  in 
such  a  climate  hard  labor  frequently  is  punished  by  death. 
Those  who  are  over-industrious  are  eliminated,  and  there 
is  bred  by  natural  selection  a  race  of  listless  people.  Work 
in  order  that  one  may  live,  is  a  great  teacher  of  self-control. 
If  a  great  preacher  could  speak  with  perfect  propriety  and 
good  effect  on  the  commonplace  subject,  "Blessed  Be  Drudg 
ery"  in  our  time,  and  in  the  midst  of  the  most  energetic 
and  cultured  type  of  American  people,  it  is  no  wonder  that 


18     PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

a  people  where  drudgery  is  unnecessary,  and  next  to  im 
possible  should  fail  to  develop  those  powers  of  inhibition 
which  routine  work  is  so  well  calculated  to  foster.  Not  to 
have  to  work  is  a  handicap  to  any  individual.  But  for  a 
race  to  be  freed  from  this  necessity,  through  multiplied 
centuries,  is  to  place  upon  the  powers  of  decision  and  self- 
control  a  test  which  unfits  them  for  a  more  strenuous  en 
vironment  until  their  nature  has  had  time  to  adjust  itself  to 
the  new  conditions.  This  process  must,  of  necessity,  be  slow. 

Indulgence. 

Furthermore,  the  abundance  of  food  at  one  season  and 
its  paucity  at  another — which  must  inevitably  be  the  case 
where  there  is  little  harvesting,  but  complete  dependence 
on  nature — will  of  itself  foster  a  disposition  to  gorge  dur 
ing  the  time  of  plenty  in  order  not  to  suffer  in  the  leaner 
days.  But  here  again  is  a  form  of  indulgence  which  breaks 
down  the  power  of  self-control.  This  fact  is  believed  by 
some  to  explain,  in  part  at  least,  the  exaggerated  appetite 
of  a  great  many  Negroes,  not  only  for  food,  but  for  liquors 
and  tobacco. 

Sexual  Indulgence. 

Then  again,  it  is  not  inconceivable — and  many  students 
of  social  questions  believe  it  to  be  a  fact — that  the  high  death 
rate  of  the  tropics  has  put  a  premium  on,  if  it  has  not  made 
a  necessity  of  a  high  birth  rate,  thus  leading  the  native  again 
into  a  form  of  indulgence  which  seems  nothing  less  than 
terrible.  This  statement  ought  to  lead  us  to  admire  the 
splendid  victory  of  that  growing  company  of  colored  people 
who  have  overcome  in  this  fight;  it  ought  also  to  make  us 
redouble  our  sympathetic  help  for  those  still  in  the  struggle. 

Professor  Dowd's  Summary. 

Speaking  of  this  lack  of  inhibition  among  the  Negroes 


TRAITS  OP  NEGRO  CHARACTER  19 

of  the  Banana  Zone,  from  which  many  of  the  slaves  came 
to  America,  Professor  Dowd  says :  * 

"Their  wills  are  inundated  and  paralyzed  by  the  surging 
of  every  passion  and  impulse  towards  immediate  gratifica 
tion.  The  riotous  clamor  of  their  passions  explains  their 
ungovernable  temper,  propensity  to  murder,  steal,  lie,  de 
ceive,  or  to  overindulge  their  sexual  appetite,  their  love  for 
liquor,  tobacco  or  anything  that  may  momentarily  strike 
their  fancy.  It  is  this  same  lack  of  restraint  among  civilized 
people  that  fills  their  world  with  tragedy,  strews  the  path 
of  history  with  blood,  makes  necessary  wars,  armies,  navies, 
police,  jails,  reformatories  and  hospitals  and  orphanages. 
As  a  consequence  of  the  thraldom  of  the  Negroes  to  their 
passions,  they  have  become  afflicted  with  a  kind  of  abulia, 
i.  e.,  a  certain  antipathy  to  whatever  exacts  resolution,  con 
straint  or  mental  effort." 

Change,  A  Slow  Process. 

These  characteristics  have  worked  themselves  into  the 
fiber  of  the  Negro  race  through  long  centuries  of  time,  and 
their  elimination  will  not  be  the  work  of  a  day.  The  situa 
tion  is  by  no  means  hopeless,  however,  for  study  of  the 
American  and  African  negro  types  leads  one  to  the  delib 
erate  conclusion  that  the  American  Negro  is  far  more  re 
moved  from  the  degradation  of  the  mass  of  population  in 
tropical  Africa  than  the  average  American  white  man  is 
removed  from  the  ignorant  American  Negro.  All  of  this 
progress  has  been  made  in  two  or  three  centuries.  Much  of 
it  in  one  century,  which  is  as  a  watch  in  the  night  com 
pared  with  the  centuries  during  which  these  propensities 
were  built  up. 

Restraint  Needed. 

What  the  Negro  needs  is  encouragement  to  self-control. 
"The  Negro  Races,"  p.  383. 


20  PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

Just  as  the  child  in  the  home  is  unable  to  control  himself 
and  needs  the  fostering  care  of  the  parent,  so  the  mass  of 
Negroes  needs  the  encouragement  of  a  stronger  race.  As  a 
simple  illustration :  if  I  were  not  in  favor  of  prohibition  for 
any  other  reason,  I  would  be  its  strong  advocate  in  the 
South,  in  order  that  this  temptation  might  be  removed  from 
the  path  of  a  race  of  little  self-mastery.  It  is  a  well-known 
fact  that  intoxicants  of  any  kind  deaden  the  powers  of  self- 
control,  and  when  taken  by  those  whose  inhibitory  powers 
are  already  weak,  they  can  have  no  other  effect  than  the 
most  disastrous.  I  wish  to  mention  this  matter  in  a  later 
chapter,  but  here  I  cannot  refrain  from  saying  that  no  white 
man  who  knows  the  far-African  heredity  of  the  Negro  can 
honestly  damn  him  for  his  self-indulgence,  and  still  leave 
before  him  the  temptation  to  get  that  which  robs  him  of 
what  little  self-control  he  has  been  able  to  acquire  during 
these  brief  centuries.  Hon.  Seaborn  Wright,  of  Atlanta, 
expresses  the  conviction  of  Southern  men  who  have  hon 
estly  studied  this  question,  and  who  really  care,  when  he 
says,  "The  development,  the  safety,  aye!  the  very  life  of 
the  Negro  race  in  the  South  hangs  upon  his  absolute  separa 
tion  from  intoxicating  liquors."  * 

Superstition. 

The  next  weakness  of  negro  character  which  stands  out 
prominently  is  superstition.  Every  primitive  race  has  much 
of  this  characteristic,  and  indeed  few  if  any  of  the  most 
advanced  races  are  entirely  free  from  its  power.  Thus  we 
are  not  discussing  a  characteristic  which  inheres  in  the 
Negro  alone ;  we  are  simply  trying  to  get  a  real  view  of  the 
negro  nature  as  we  now  find  it  in  the  South.  It  is  un 
necessary  here  more  than  to  refer  to  the  dark  superstition 
of  practically  all  of  the  African  tribes.  They  live  in  con 
stant  fear  of  angry  spirits,  of  the  power  of  the  fetich,  of  the 

J"Social  Welfare  and  the  Liquor  Problem,"  p.  233. 


TRAITS  OF  NEGRO  CHARACTER  21 

witch  doctor  and  what  not.  Much  of  this  has  become  so 
deeply  ingrained  in  the  nature  of  the  Negro  that  the  slaves 
and  their  descendants  have  never  been  able  to  shake  them 
selves  free  from  its  terrible  hold. 

This  superstitious  fear  makes  almost  every  Negro  an  in 
tense  conservative,  hard  to  move  out  of  the  old  beaten  way 
of  doing  things.  To  change  means  the  past  was  wrong, 
and  that  cannot  be,  because  providence  has  prospered  it. 
A  brief  look,  however,  at  some  of  the  fields  and  homes 
would  make  one  very  loath  to  charge  providence  with  any 
such  crimes.  Perhaps  there  is  no  more  unprogressive  or 
immovable  mass  of  humanity  to  be  found  than  a  group  of 
superstitious  Negroes.  There  is  no  greater  bar  to  the 
Negro's  advancement  than  this  fear,  and  the  hope  of  the  race 
lies  in  his  getting  a  new  message  of  life  that  is  not  based  on 
superstitious  fears  of  ghosts,  spirits  and  future  punishment. 

Cruelty. 

In  view  of  the  Negro's  kindliness  and  good  nature,  it 
seems  a  strange  charge  to  say  that  he  is  cruel  to  animals  and 
dependents.  Yet  candor  forces  one  to  admit  that  this  is 
frequently  the  case.  Some  of  the  horrible  practices  of  pun 
ishment  in  Africa  would  be  unbelievable  did  not  one  have 
the  thought  of  the  Inquisition,  St.  Bartholomew,  the  French 
Revolution,  ever  staring  him  in  the  face.  Not  infrequently 
have  I  seen  an  ignorant  Negro  beat  his  mule  or  horse,  seem 
ingly  for  the  pure  joy  of  seeing  the  animal  wince. 

In  an  investigation  made  by  Mr.  Stephenson,  of  North 
Carolina,  concerning  jury  service  of  Negroes,  it  came  out 
rather  clearly  that  most  negro  defendants  preferred  not  to 
have  other  Negroes  on  the  Jury,  because  they  feared  cruel 
treatment  and  severity  from  such  jurors.  Whether  this  is  so 
or  not,  almost  every  lawyer  and  judge  questioned  gave  this 
as  his  conclusion.  Dr.  Odum,  in  his  discussion  of  "The 
Social  and  Mental  Traits  of  the  Negro,"  gives  more  em- 


22     PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

phasis  to  the  cruelty  of  the  Negro  than  we  are  disposed  to 
accept.  But  perhaps  he  is  partly  right  when  he  says : *  "And 
Negroes  often  impose  severe  punishments  when  the  feeling 
of  authority  and  power  is  given  full  sway.  His  judgments 
are  both  careless  and  without  compassion  when  they  are 
once  directed  against  a  subordinate." 

Undoubtedly  this  cruelty  is  a  survival  of  the  old  savage 
ry,  where  the  hand  of  every  man  was  set  against  his  neigh 
bor,  and  so,  perhaps  we  ought  not  to  judge  too  harshly 
those  who  are  separated  from  this  ancestry  by  so  brief  a 
period  of  time.  We  have  before  remarked  concerning  the 
lack  of  synthetic  imagination  on  the  part  of  the  African 
native.  This  may  account  to  some  extent  for  his  cruelty 
because  he  is  not  able  to  put  himself  in  the  other  man's 
place.  John  Fiske  has  put  this  clearly  as  follows:1 

"If  now  we  contrast  the  civilized  man  intellectually  and 
morally  with  the  savage,  we  find  that,  along  with  his  vast 
increase  of  cerebral  surface,  he  has  an  immensely  greater 
power  of  representing  in  imagination  objects  and  relations 
not  present  to  the  senses.  This  is  the  fundamental  intellect 
ual  difference  between  civilized  men  and  savages.  The 
power  of  imagination,  or  ideal  representation,  underlies  the 
whole  of  science  and  art,  and  it  is  closely  connected  with 
the  ability  to  work  hard  and  submit  to  present  discomfort 
for  the  sake  of  a  distant  reward.  It  is  also  closely  con 
nected  with  the  development  of  the  sympathetic  feelings. 
The  better  we  can  imagine  objects  and  relations  not  present 
to  sense,  the  more  readily  we  can  sympathize  with  other 
people.  Half  the  basis  of  cruelty  in  the  world  is  the  direct 
result  of  stupid  incapacity  to  put  one's  self  in  the  other 
man's  place." 

Let  us  hope  that  better  trained  imaginations  and  a  more 
genuine  religion  will  help  to  eradicate  this  ugly  element. 

'"The  Social  and  Mental  Traits  of  the  Negro,"  p.  209. 
a"The  Destiny  of  Man,"  p.  99. 


TRAITS  OF  NEGRO  CHARACTER  23 

Vanity  and  Conceit. 

It  is  an  undoubted  fact  that  the  mass  of  Negroes  in  the 
South  are  near  enough  to  the  child  stage  to  be  eager  for 
attention  and  easily  filled  with  conceit.  Referring  to  this 
characteristic  among  African  tribes  of  the  Banana  Zone, 
Professor  Dowd  says:1  "The  Negro  seeks  to  win  the  ap 
plause  of  his  fellows,  usually  by  a  gaudy  exhibition  of 
dress,  trinkets  or  boastful  language.  The  least  word  of 
praise  or  flattery  gives  him  a  lively  sense  of  pleasure,  and 
this  soft  spot  in  his  character  is  one  of  which  the  shrewd 
white  man  soon  learns  to  take  advantage." 

Indeed,  one  of  the  strongest  objections  brought  against 
educating  the  Negro  is  the  fact  that  it  makes  of  him  a 
"smart-Alec."  One  is  forced  to  confess  that  gaudy  ties, 
pointed  shoes  of  extreme  style,  "loud"  hosiery,  and  hats 
tilted  to  one  side  frequently  mark  the  negro  student  who 
has  just  started.  It  is  a  pity  that  such  should  be  so.  But 
candor  forces  us  to  remember  that  the  Negro  has  no  monop 
oly  on  "smart-Alecdom."  It  is  just  a  little  more  prominent 
and  vulgar  in  its  negro  manifestation. 

"When  I  see  a  lad  with  his  pants  rolled  up 

And  his  beautiful  sox  on  view, 
With  his  red  neck-tie,  and  his  little  round  hat, 

With  a  band  of  marble  blue, 
With  his  sixteen  rings  and  his  fourteen  pins 

That  he  got  at  his  dear  prep-school, 
Why  it  strikes  a  chord  and  I  say,  "Oh,  Lord! 

Was  I  ever  that  big  a  fool?" 

And  that  was  written  of  the  white  freshman. 

Tendency  to  Wordiness. 

Of  the  Negro's  tendency  to  wordiness  I  know  no  better 
example  than  the  book,  "The  American  Negro,"  written  by 
a  Negro  as  an  arraignment  of  the  race.  After  charging  the 
Negro  with  vanity,  pomposity  and  conceit,  he  passes  on  to  a 

'The  Negro  Races,"  p.  395. 


24  PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

criticism  of  the  religious  and  social  life  of  the  Negro  a$ 
follows :  *  "The  social  side  of  the  negro  life  has  been  to  me 
an  open  page  of  execrable  weakness,  of  unblushing  shame, 
of  inconceivable  mendacity,  of  indurated  folly  and  epheme 
ral  contrition."  By  this  sentence  alone  he  would  prove  how 
near  he  is  to  his  African  ancestor  who  loves  nothing  so  well 
as  a  high-sounding  palaver. 

The  Negro  is  naturally  vain,  conceited,  verbose,  pom 
pous — every  one  of  which  traits  appears  in  the  characters 
created  by  Dunbar,  himself  a  Negro  who  presumably  knew 
them  well.  But  real  training  is  a  splendid  cure,  and  I  am 
glad  to  say  that  I  do  not  know  a  single  well-trained  Negro 
who  allows  himself  to  fall  into  these  childish  habits. 

Lacking  in  Power  of  Initiative. 

Perhaps  the  most  fundamental  weakness  is  the  seeming 
lack  of  initiative.  The  Negro  is  a  good  follower.  He  imi 
tates  easily  and  accurately,  but  he  does  not  seem,  so  far  at 
least,  to  have  developed  much  power  of  originality  save  in 
a  few  instances.  The  weakness  of  the  Liberian  govern 
ment  ;  the  fact  that  there  have  never  been  any  great  empires 
built  up  in  Africa ;  the  failure  of  the  churches  in  America  to 
unite  on  any  strong,  aggressive  policy ;  the  absence  of  com 
munity  life  and  spirit — all  are  indications  of  lack  of  origina 
tive  and  initiative  ability.  Of  course,  there  are  a  few  real 
leaders,  like  Dr.  Booker  T.  Washington,  Major  R.  R.  Moton, 
of  Hampton,  Dr.  C.  T.  Walker,  of  Augusta,  Ga.,  and  T.  C. 
Walker,  of  Gloster  County,  Virginia,  not  to  mention  many 
others  who  have  proved  themselves  genuine  leaders  of  men. 
Perhaps  as  years  go  by  and  as  more  and  more  responsi 
bility  for  the  welfare  of  his  race  is  thrown  on  the  Negro, 
increasing  numbers  of  men  will  be  found  able  to  respond 
to  the  call  for  leaders  with  power  of  initiative. 

"'The  American  Negro,"  p.  xxi. 


TRAITS  OF  NEGRO  CHARACTER  2$ 

Picture  Not  All  Dark. 

This  is  an  ugly,  but  not  altogether  dark  picture.  In 
every  phase  of  weakness  here  presented  the  American  Negro 
is — if  we  may  believe  the  records  of  African  travelers — 
many  stages  advanced  over  his  African  ancestry.  Progress 
has  been  slow,  to  be  sure,  but  the  start  is  always  slow.  Now 
that  the  start  is  well  made,  I  confidently  look  to  see  more 
advancement  in  the  next  twenty-five  years  than  we  have 
seen  in  all  the  years  since  the  landing  of  the  first  slaves  in 
1619.  If  the  things  I  have  said  have  seemed  harsh,  they 
have  been  said  with  no  desire  to  wound,  but  with  the  one 
sincere  purpose  that  white  and  colored  alike  may  see  the 
weaknesses  of  the  Negro  and  unite  in  an  effort  to  save  him 
from  himself.  Emerson  once  said  the  purpose  of  a  friend 
is  to  make  us  do  what  we  can,  and  no  man  is  a  real  friend 
to  an  individual  or  to  a  race  who  is  not  honest  enough  to 
see,  and  courageous  enough  to  set  forth  the  plain  weaknesses 
found  therein. 

Strong  Points  in  Negro  Character. 

One  is  glad  to  have  said  the  worst  in  order  that  he  may 
feel  free  to  say  the  best  without  being  accused  of  prejudice 
or  of  a  one-sided  view.  That  there  are  many  noble  traits 
of  character  in  the  Negro  cannot  for  a  moment  be  doubted 
by  those  who  have  taken  time  to  think  systematically 
through  their  experiences  with  him.  Of  course  many  of 
these  virtues  are  almost  lacking  in  many  of  the  vagrant 
servant  class  who  work  only  enough  to  keep  soul  and  body 
together,  but  this  same  thing  is  true  of  the  shiftless  class  of 
whites.  In  fact,  if  I  must  deal  with  a  shiftless  man,  I 
believe  I  would  take  my  chances  on  a  trifling  Negro  rather 
than  a  trifling  white  man.  Not  a  few  of  the  managers  and 
owners  of  large  plantations  have  expressed  to  me  this  same 
preference. 


26  PRESENT.  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

Fidelity. 

Of  all  the  stories  of  faithful  devotion,  few  read  more  like 
a  romance  than  the  simple  facts  of  the  love  of  the  slave  for 
his  master.  For  years  I  have  had  an  attentive  ear  to  such 
stories,  whether  told  by  some  white-haired  old  Negro  who 
still  lives  in  the  past  or  by  some  of  the  old  slave  owners, 
who  love  to  recount  the  gratitude  and  faithfulness  of  their 
slaves.  Just  the  other  day  a  prominent  negro  leader  told 
me  the  simple  story  of  his  father,  going  to  war  as  the  body- 
servant  of  his  young  master,  watching  him  in  his  tent,  bury 
ing  him  when  killed,  and  walking  two  hundred  miles  after 
the  battle  to  carry  back  to  his  young  mistress  the  gold  watch 
and  the  money  of  her  dead  husband.  Joel  Chandler  Harris 
and  Thomas  Nelson  Page  have  made  this  characteristic  of 
the  Negro  stand  out  clearly  by  the  beauty  of  their  plantation 
stories.  Paul  Laurence  Dunbar,  himself  a  pure  blood 
Negro,  has  given  the  same  characteristic  beautiful  expres 
sion  in  his  stories,  "The  Staunton  Coachman,"  "Cahoots," 
etc.,  and  in  such  poems  as  "The  Deserted  Plantation"  and 
"Christmas  on  the  Plantation." 

During  all  the  dark  days  of  the  Civil  War  there  were 
very  few  instances  where  Negroes  deliberately  betrayed  a 
specific  trust.  "That  was  the  old-time  darky,"  many  are 
fond  of  saying,  but  it  was  the  Negro,  for  old  time  or  new 
time,  the  essential  nature  of  a  race  cannot  be  changed  in  a 
generation.  If  the  "old-time  negro"  had  in  him  the  essen 
tial  quality  of  fidelity  to  a  trust,  then  the  new  Negro  has  that 
same  fundamental  quality,  if  we  will  only  find  some  way  to 
develop  it.  Those  who  talk  about  the  angelic  qualities  of 
the  "old-time  darky"  (I  do  not  like  the  term),  and  damn 
with  every  breath  the  new  Negro,  simply  prove  their  shallow 
thinking.  They  ought  to  know  that  a  race  characteristic  can 
not  be  developed  in  two  or  three  generations  unless  its 
essential  elements  are  there  at  the  beginning.  If  fidelity 
was  a  mark  of  the  former  slave,  fidelity  is  still  a  trait,  though 


TRAITS  OF  NEGRO  CHARACTER  27 

undeveloped,  in  the  Negro  of  today.  We  alone  are  respon 
sible  if  we  do  not  find  means  of  bringing  it  to  the  surface. 
Besides,  it  may  fairly  be  said  that  few  Negroes  today  de 
liberately  disregard  a  definite  charge.  They  may  lie  or  steal 
in  petty  ways,  but  even  the  poorest  type  of  Negro  rarely 
betrays  a  specific  trust. 

Gratitude. 

It  often  has  been  said  of  late  years  that  the  Negro  has 
no  sense  of  gratitude.  This  is  not  in  accordance  with  my 
experience.  I  du  not  mean  to  say  that  I  have  not  done 
things  for  Negroes  where  the  latter  failed  to  show  appre 
ciation,  but  I  do  mean  to  say  that  they  are  fully  as  appre 
ciative  and  much  more  expressive  of  their  appreciation  than 
the  average  white  person,  particularly  where  the  thing  done 
is  something  the  motive  for  which  they  are  able  to  under 
stand.  I  have  spoken  in  a  great  number  of  their  churches, 
and  in  many  of  their  schools,  with  always  one  result — a 
genuine  appreciation  from  them  of  what  I  was  trying  to 
do.  Many  of  our  strongest  and  best  ministers  who  have 
thus  attempted  to  serve,  testify  to  the  same  responses.  In 
fact,  it  is  almost  pathetic  to  see  the  deep  appreciation  for  a 
Southern  white  man  who  attempts  to  help  them.  I  recently 
spoke  in  one  of  the  negro  churches  on  St.  Helena  Island, 
South  Carolina,  and  an  old  woman  came  up  to  me  and  said : 
"T'ank  de  Lord,  Southern  white  man,  for  sich  a  one  aa 
you.  I  nebber  thought  he  would  be  bawn !"  When  I  assured 
her  that  there  were  hundreds  of  other  Southern  men  deeply 
interested  in  the  welfare  of  the  race,  her  gratitude  was 
unbounded. 

*Whut  dat  you  whisperin'  keepin*  fom  me? 
Don't  shut  me  out  'cause  I'se  ol'  an'  can't  see. 
Somep'n'  's  gone  wrong  dat's  a-causin'  you  dread— 
Don't  be  afeared  to  tell — whut!  mastah  dead? 


*Paul  Laurence  Dunbar:    "Lyrics  of  the  Hearthside,"  pp.  147-8. 


28     PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

Somebody  brung  de  news  early  today — 
One  of  de  sojers  he  led,  do  you  say? 
Didn't  he  foller  whah  ol'  mastah  led? 
How  kin  he  live  w'en  his  leadah  is  dead? 

Let  me  lay  down  awhile,  dah  by  his  bed ; 
I  wants  to  t'ink — hit  ain't  clean  in  my  head — 
Killed  while  a-leadin'  his  men  into  fight — 
Dat's  whut  you  said,  ain't  it,  did  I  hyeah  right? 

Mastah,  my  mastah,  dead  dah  in  de  fiel'  ? 
Lif  me  up  some — dah,  jes'  so  I  kin  kneel. 
I  was  too  weak  to  go  wid  him,  dey  said, 
Well,  now  I'll — fin'  him — so — mastah  is  dead. 

Yes,  suh,  I's  comin'  ez  fas'  ez  I  kin — 
'Twas  kin'  o'  da'k,  but  hit's  lightah  agin: 
P'omised  yo'  pappy  I'd  allus  tek  keer 
Of  you— yes,  'mastah— I's  follerin'— hyeah  I 

Generosity. 

The  Negro  is  generous  to  a  fault.  Their  contributions  to 
their  churches  are  regular  and  disproportionately  large.  In 
any  ordinary  morning  collection  they  will  secure  ten  times 
as  much  in  accordance  with  their  wealth  as  the  average 
white  church  To  their  schools  they  give  liberally  out  o£ 
their  poverty.  I  was  recently  in  a  town  of  3,000  inhabitants 
where  there  was  being  built  by  taxation  a  $65,000  public 
school  for  the  whites.  The  town  owned  no  school  building 
for  the  Negroes,  though  one-third  of  the  population  belonged 
to  that  race.  Enterprising  negro  men  had  built  a  school  out 
of  their  own  means.  The  white  school  ran  nine  months, 
but  there  was  only  sufficient  money  appropriated  to  employ 
negro  teachers  three  months,  and  again  the  people  sub 
scribed  annually  enough  to  extend  the  term  to  seven  months. 

Again  and  again  as  I  have  been  on  investigation  tours 
I  have  found  homes  where  they  have  reared  and  cared  for 
more  orphans  than  they  have  had  children  of  their  own. 
In  the  home  of  a  Baptist  minister  recently  I  drew  out  the 
information  that  he  had  two  children  of  his  own,  but  had 
reared  six  orphan  children  who  were  not  related  to  him  by 


TRAITS  OF  NEGRO  CHARACTER  29 

blood  in  any  way.  No  Negro  will  let  another  suffer  so  long 
as  he  has  a  crust  to  share.  Whatever  others,  who  are  cyni 
cal,  may  call  it,  I  call  this  generosity. 

Without  Malice. 

Some  time  ago  I  had  a  letter  from  a  prominent  planta 
tion  owner  and  manager  in  the  state  of  Texas.  He  was 
expressing  the  hope  that  I  would  put  into  written  form  a 
statement  about  the  real  qualities  of  the  Negro.  He  re 
minded  me  that  he  had  never  in  his  long  experience  with 
Negroes  known  one  to  harbor  a  revengeful  spirit.  They 
may  be  passionately  angry,  but  their  anger  soon  cools.  They 
forgive  and  then  forget — a  thing  hard  for  the  white  man 
to  do.  This  is  characteristic  of  the  African  native  just  as  it 
is  of  the  American  Negro.  Dowd  says  of  them:  "A  few 
hours  or  a  few  days  are  sufficient  to  obliterate  any  resentful 
impulse  they  may  have  had."1  The  long-suffering  of  the 
Negro  under  abuse,  and  without  resentment,  marks  him  out 
as  the  most  patient  race  in  the  world.  Abstractly  we  all 
admire  patience,  but  as  a  practical  trait  of  character  the 
Anglo-Saxon  is  simply  incapable  of  appreciating  this  fine 
trait  of  the  Negro. 

Kindliness. 

In  this  connection  one  must  not  fail  to  mention  the  spirit 
of  kindliness  which  is  well  nigh  a  universal  characteristic. 
It  is  the  rarest  thing  in  the  world  to  find  a  Negro  without 
the  milk  of  human  kindness  in  him.  He  may  have  even  a 
vein  of  cruelty,  but  side  by  side  with  it  will  be  found  the 
most  genuine  kindliness  of  spirit.  Dr.  Booker  T.  Wash 
ington  says  that  patience,  kindliness  and  lack  of  resentment 
are  the  three  distinguishing  marks  of  a  real  Negro. 
"The  Negro  Races,"  p.  396. 


30     PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

• 

Sense  of  Humor. 

One  of  the  saving  virtues  in  difficult  and  trying  situa 
tions  is  a  real  sense  of  humor.  Because  the  Indian  had  not 
this  trait  of  character  he  has  practically  passed  away  in  the 
hard  conflict  with  the  white  man.  Had  the  Negro  been 
lacking  here  he  doubtless  would  never  have  prospered  as 
he  has.  "The  quaint  humor  of  the  Negro  helped  to  turn 
many  a  sharp  corner.  It  helped  to  excuse  his  mistakes  and, 
by  turning  a  reproof  into  a  jest,  to  soften  the  resentment 
of  his  master  for  his  faults."1 

The  quick  repartee  of  the  Negro  is  proverbial.  I  remem 
ber  once,  when  I  was  a  student  at  the  university,  to  have 
passed  two  negro  waiters  with  a  pair  of  riding  leggins  in 
my  hand.  One  of  the  Negroes  remarked,  "Misser  Wea'er- 
ford  gwine  gimme  them  when  he  leaves  college."  Quick 
as  a  flash  the  other  responded,  "Huh,  talk  lack  I  done  quit 
wu'kin  heah!"  There  is  no  better  amusement  than  to  sit 
down  near  a  railroad  station  where  a  dozen  negroes  are 
congregated  and,  unobserved,  listen  to  their  sallies.  It  is 
all  so  quaint,  so  naive,  and  withal  so  full  of  genuine  humor 
that  it  furnishes  real  recreation. 

Religious  and  Musical. 

It  is  almost  unnecessary  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that 
the  Negro  is  essentially  religious.  In  my  former  book2  I 
have  given  an  entire  chapter  to  this  point.  On  a  recent  visit 
to  St.  Helena  Island,  South  Carolina,  I  found  there  were 
not  only  seven  churches  with  large  memberships,  but  scat 
tered  over  the  island  nearly  one  hundred  praise  houses,  in 
which  services  are  held  every  Tuesday,  Thursday,  Saturday 
and  Sunday  night.  Religion  is  a  real  part  of  life  with  the 
race  and  gives  promise  of  a  better  day  to  come. 

"The  Story  of  the  Negro,"  p.  158. 

'"Negro  Life  in  the  South,  Chapter  V,"  Association  Press,  New 
York. 


TRAITS  OF  NEGRO  CHARACTER  31 

Likewise,  music  is  the  Negro's  very  breath  of  life.  The 
most  distinctive  music  that  America  has  produced  is  negro 
music.  By  this  he  has  quieted  the  negro  child,  by  it  he  has 
lightened  the  burdens  of  the  long  day's  tasks,  and  through 
it  he  has  poured  out  the  deep  longings  of  his  soul  for  free 
dom.  Those  who  have  heard  the  students  at  Hampton,  Fisk 
or  Tuskegee  sing  the  old  plantation  melodies  have  some 
vague  idea  of  the  wild  charm  of  their  music  and  the  power 
ful  part  it  must  have  played  in  their  lives.  Perhaps  the 
Negro  does  not  sing  so  much  now  as  formerly,  but  one  of 
the  elements  of  his  nature,  softening  and  mellowing  all  the 
harsher  traits,  is  that  passionate  love  for  music  which  char 
acterizes  every  member  of  the  race. 

Summary. 

What  a  catalogue  of  splendid  qualities  is  this:  Fidelity 
amid  trying  circumstances;  gratitude  where  blessings  have 
been  bestowed;  forgiving  in  spirit  even  when  grossly 
wronged ;  patient  in  the  face  of  sore  trial ;  generous  in  spite 
of  bitter  poverty;  always  seeing  the  humor  of  a  situation, 
thus  saving  many  a  tragic  scene;  deeply  and  intensely  re 
ligious,  even  though  their  religion  is  often  perverted;  with 
souls  responsive  to  the  truest  of  musical  rhythm;  and,  one 
might  truly  add,  cheerful  in  the  midst  of  privations ;  sympa 
thetic  to  the  point  of  suffering;  intensely  curious  and  eager 
to  know.  What  if  the  race  is  not  the  most  brilliantly  intel 
lectual  ?  What  if  they  are  lacking  in  self-mastery  ?  What 
if  there  is  often  a  lack  of  industry  and  thrift? — here  is  a 
catalogue  of  race  traits  enough  to  make  any  race  happy,  vir 
tuous,  useful,  and  even  great. 

Not  a  characteristic  has  been  given  which  is  not  com 
monly  found  in  the  masses  of  the  Negroes.  Whatever  of 
failures  there  are,  and  they  are  many,  whatever  of  short 
comings  and  tragedies  of  life — here  is  enough  to  give  heart 
to  every  genuine  friend  of  the  race. 


32  PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

I  call  upon  the  negro  students  who  may  see  this  page 
to  unite  their  efforts  to  eradicate  the  weaknesses  and  foster 
the  virtues  of  their  race.  I  call  upon  the  white  college  men 
who  study  this  to  lend  a  helping  hand  to  a  weaker  brother. 
I  call  on  all  who  believe  in  the  essential  value  of  humanity, 
who  believe  in  God  as  a  Father  of  us  all,  that  we  shall  give 
ourselves  in  unselfish  service  for  making  the  best  prevail 
in  the  life  of  this  struggling  people. 


II 

NEGRO  LEADERSHIP  AND  THE  GROWTH  OF 
RACE  PRIDE 


ODE  TO  ETHIOPIA 

0  Mother  Race !  to  thee  I  bring 
This  pledge  of  faith  unwavering, 

This  tribute  to  thy  glory. 

1  know  the  pangs  which  thou  didst  feel, 
When  Slavery  crushed  thee  with  its  heel. 

With  thy  dear  blood  all  gory. 

Be  proud,  my  Race,  in  mind  and  soul, 
Thy  name  is  writ  on  Glory's  scroll 

In  characters  of  fire. 

High  'mid  the  clouds  of  Fame's  bright  sky 
Thy  banner's  blazoned  folds  now  fly, 

And  truth  shall  lift  them  higher. 

Thou  hast  the  right  to  noble  pride, 
Whose  spotless  robes  were  purified 

By  blood's  severe  baptism. 
Upon  thy  brow  the  cross  was  laid, 
And  labor's  painful  sweat-beads  made 

A  consecrating  chrism. 

No  other  race,  or  white  or  black, 

When  bound  as  thou  wert,  to  the  rack, 

So  seldom  stooped  to  grieving; 
No  other  race,  when  free  again, 
Forgot  the  past  and  proved  them  men 

So  noble  in  forgiving. 

Go  on  and  up !     Our  souls  and  eyes 
Shall  follow  thy  continued  rise ; 

Our  ears  shall  list  thy  story 
From  bards  who  from  thy  root  shall  spring, 
And  proudly  tune  their  lyres  to  sing 

Of  Ethiopia's  glory. 

—P.  L.  Dunbar. 


CHAPTER  II 

NEGRO  LEADERSHIP  AND  THE  GROWTH  OF 
RACE  PRIDE 

INDIVIDUALISM  in  the  sense  of  isolated  endeavor  is  be 
coming  less  and  less  prevalent  in  America.  The  early  plan 
tation  system,  where  each  was  an  independent  unit  in  itself 
and  able  to  supply  all  its  simple  needs,  has  completely  lost 
its  place  in  the  industrial  economy  of  our  country.  This 
was  a  type  of  individualism  which  finds  its  opposite  at  the 
present  time  in  cooperative  creameries,  cooperative  disposal 
of  crops,  cooperative  stock  breeding,  etc.  Likewise,  indi 
vidualism  in  manufacture  and  commerce  is  giving  way  to 
cooperation.  We  now  have  the  larger  organizations  mini 
mizing  expense,  reaching  out  over  larger  territories,  bring 
ing  together  large  groups  of  people  in  the  manufacture, 
distribution  and  consumption  of  the  article.  If  a  man 
desires  to  do  large  things  today  he  secures  the  cooperation 
of  the  largest  possible  number  of  men  in  his  project.  We 
no  longer  spend  our  energy  in  isolated  endeavor,  but  the 
best  type  of  individualist  is  now  the  man  who  leads  many 
other  individuals  in  concerted  action. 

Basis  of  Cooperation. 

The  basis  of  cooperation  is  like-mindedness,  or  kindred- 
ness  of  ideas  and  ideals.  Two  men  do  not  and  cannot  work 
harmoniously  together  unless  they  are  sufficiently  like-mind 
ed  to  be  moving  in  the  same  direction  and  toward  the  same 
goal.  The  thief  and  the  honest  man  soon  dissolve  partner 
ship.  Not  only  so,  but  two  honest  men  may  find  partner 
ship  incompatible.  Deep  down  in  their  natures  there  may 
be  that  fundamental  difference  of  feeling  and  conception 


36     PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

which  makes  it  impossible  for  the  right  kind  of  mutual  con 
fidence  to  spring  up.  Under  such  circumstances  a  business 
partnership  is  exceedingly  trying. 

Likewise  in  the  broader  relationships  of  life  there  must 
be  that  compatibility  which  arises  from  mutual  confidence. 
Like-mindedness,  kindredness  of  conception,  and  genuine 
confidence  are  therefore  the  essentials  of  cooperation.  No 
group  of  men  who  do  not  believe  in  themselves  and  in  one 
another  can  be  expected  to  cooperate  in  bringing  about  large 
results.  It  ought  to  be  said  that  some  large  outstanding 
motive  often  will  help  to  weld  into  like-mindedness  those 
who  otherwise  might  be  incompatible.  I  recall  that  during 
the  Spanish-American  War  a  great  many  public  orators  re 
ferred  to  the  fact  that  the  North  and  the  South  had  been 
drawn  much  closer  together  in  the  face  of  a  common  peril 
and  a  common  opportunity. 

Race  Pride  and  Racial  Cooperation. 

This  at  once  leads  one  to  consider  what  it  is  that  will 
give  to  a  whole  race  that  cooperative  action  which  will 
enable  it  to  achieve  worthily.  The  first  essential  is  that 
the  members  of  the  race  shall  be  like-minded,  shall  come  to 
realize  their  consciousness  of  like  desires  and  needs — in  other 
words,  shall  come  into  a  realization  of  Kind.  This  means 
the  growth  of  race  consciousness.  It  me'ans  that  men  shall 
come  to  see  that  they  belong  to  a  common  race,  have  a 
common  heritage  and  a  common  future.  Nothing  can  take 
the  place  of  this.  This  race  consciousness  growing  into 
race  pride  becomes  the  most  powerful  factor  in  welding 
together,  into  cooperative  and  constructive  action,  all  those 
who  belong  to  the  race.  It  at  once  raises  efficiency  and  in 
creases  determination,  and  these  in  turn  tend  to  create 
a  greater  self-respect  and  self-confidence. 


LEADERSHIP  AND  RACE  PRIDE  37 

Not  Segregation. 

Race  pride,  race  consciousness,  and  race  cooperation  do 
not  mean  race  segregation.  The  fact  that  one  is  an  Anglo- 
Saxon  does  not  cut  him  off  from  interest  in  and  sympathy 
with  the  whole  world.  It  simply  gives  a  vantage  ground 
from  which  the  characteristics  of  other  races  may  be  serene 
ly  reviewed.  A  man  is  more  of  a  world  citizen  because  he  is 
a  good  American,  and  likewise  a  man  is  more  thoroughly 
sympathetic  with  humanity  because  he  belongs  to,  works 
for,  and  is  a  genuine  part  of,  one  group  of  the  human  family. 
Therefore,  when  we  talk  about  the  growth  of  race  pride 
and  race  consciousness  on  the  part  of  the  American  Negro, 
we  do  not  mean  that  he  will  be  less  an  American,  but  more 
a  Negro.  He  is  more  a  Negro  that  he  may  be  more  an 
American.  He  is  not  less  interested  in  humanity  because 
he  finds  himself  interested  in  his  own  race,  but  the  very  fact 
of  his  race  appreciation  gives  him  a  new  consciousness  of 
the  dignity  of  all  human  kind.  Thus  it  seems  clear  that  if 
the  Negro  is  ever  to  become  efficient,  it  must  be  because  he 
shall  come  to  realize  the  value  and  worth  of  his  own  race. 
We  cannot  hope  to  make  a  people  worthy  so  long  as  they 
expect  to  be  nothing  and  do  not  believe  in  themselves. 

Incentive  of  Race  Success. 

Dr.  Booker  T.  Washington  in  one  of  his  books  speaks 
of  how  he  began  reading  biography  while  a  student  at 
Hampton,  and  how  he  kept  wondering  why  there  might  not 
be  some  negro  men  who  would  do  great  things.  His  fellow 
students  laughed  at  him  and  told  him  that  those  of  whom 
he  read  were  white  men  and  that  Negroes  never  could  ac 
complish  such  results.  They  were  without  any  race  con 
sciousness  in  the  best  sense.  Certainly,  they  were  without 
race  pride.  .Perhaps  one  of  the  best  things  Dr.  Washington 
has  done  for  his  race  is  to  inspire  a  real  pride  and  a  real 
belief  among  his  people. 


38  PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

» 

So  long  as  all  the  virtue  is  supposed  to  reside  in  another 
race  there  can  be  no  hope  for  the  Negro.  But  when  he  begins 
to  get  sufficient  culture  and  sufficient  resources  to  find  a 
larger  life  within  his  own  race  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
he  has  a  motive  for  progress. 

"But  build  him  up,  make  him  sufficient  in  himself,  give 
him  within  his  own  race  life  that  which  will  satisfy,  and  the 
social  question  will  be  solved.  The  trained  Negro  is  less 
and  less  inclined  to  lose  himself  and  his  race  in  the  sea  of 
another  race.  As  he  develops,  he  is  finding  a  new  race-con 
sciousness,  he  is  building  a  new  race  pride.  He  no  longer 
objects  to  being  called  a  Negro — it  is  becoming  the  badge 
of  his  race  and  the  mark  of  his  self-sufficiency.  We  have 
nothing,  therefore,  to  fear  from  giving  him  a  chance."1 

Indications  of  Growth  in  Race  Consciousness. 

It  is  therefore  with  the  keenest  interest  that  one  looks 
everywhere  for  indications  that  this  pride  of  race  is  grow 
ing,  and  one  hails  with  delight  anything  that  points  to  its 
fuller  development.  Perhaps  one  of  the  clearest  indications 
of  this  new  appreciation  of  the  race  is  the  open  avowal  and 
championship  of  the  race  in  its  needs  by  the  better  type  of 
Negroes.  To  me  it  is  significant  that  a  man  of  the  capacity 
and  influence  of  Dr.  Booker  T.  Washington  should  go  out 
of  his  way  to  assert  over  and  over  again  his  glory  in  his 
own  race. 

"What  I  have  said  here  of  my  own  feelings  in  regard  to 
my  race  is  representative  of  the  feelings  of  thousands  of 
others  of  the  black  people  of  this  country.  Adverse  criti 
cism  has  driven  them  to  think  deeper  than  they  otherwise 
would  about  the  problems  which  confront  them  as  a  race, 
to  cling  closer  than  they  otherwise  would  have  done  to  their 
own  people,  to  value  more  highly  than  they  once  did,  the 
songs  and  records  of  their  past  life  in  slavery.  The  effect 
*The  Author's  "Negro  Life  in  the  South,"  pp.  173-174. 


LEADERSHIP  AND  RACE  PRIDE  39 

has  been  to  give  them,  in  short,  that  sort  of  race  pride  and 
race  consciousness  which,  it  seems  to  me,  they  need  to  bring 
out  and  develop  the  best  that  is  in  them.  .  .  .  Perhaps 
it  will  not  be  out  of  place  for  me  to  say  here,  at  the  beginning 
of  this  book,  that  the  more  I  have  studied  the  masses  of  the 
race  to  which  I  belong,  the  more  I  have  learned  not  only  to 
sympathize  with  but  to  respect  them.  I  am  proud  and 
happy  to  be  identified  with  their  struggle  for  a  higher  and 
better  life."  * 

Paul  Laurence  Dunbar  has  done  the  race  a  real  service 
through  his  poems  and  stories,  which  are  so  genuine,  so  true 
to  life,  and  yet  so  filled  with  a  deep  appreciation  of  the  value 
of  his  own  people,  that  one  cannot  read  his  works  without 
coming  to  have  a  new  conception  of  the  Negro.  Here  and 
there  you  can  find  a  Negro,  who  is  more  white  than  black, 
and  who  chafes  under  conditions,  but  it  is  remarkable  how 
large  a  proportion  of  the  negro  writers  and  public  men  of 
our  day  glory  in  their  own  race. 

New  Appreciation  of  Their  Past. 

Another  indication  of  the  growth  of  race  pride  and  race 
consciousness  is  the  manner  in  which  the  best  Negroes  glory 
in  their  past.  There  was  a  time  when  the  Negro  was 
ashamed  of  his  slavery;  there  was  a  time  when  he  was 
unwilling  to  talk  of  his  relationship  to  Africa,  and  thought 
the  farther  he  could  get  away  from  his  past  the  better  off 
he  would  be.  In  fact,  I  have  had  a  letter  within  a  year 
from  a  leading  Northern  gentleman  telling  me  of  a  negro 
quartette.  In  this  letter  the  chief  recommendation  of  the 
quartette  was  that  it  did  not  sing  the  old  melodies  because 
the  singers  wanted  to  forget  the  past.  To  me  that  is  the 
worst  condemnation  that  could  have  leen  written.  The 
boy  who  goes  away  from  his  simple,  ignorant,  but  honest 
home,  enters  the  university,  and  with  his  new  culture  learns 
Story  of  the  Negro,"  pp.  12  and  15. 


40  PRESENT.  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

to  despise  the  old  home  and  the  parents,  proves  himself 
thereby  a  man  of  small  caliber.  The  race  that  is  ashamed 
to  own  its  past,  that  wants  to  forget  the  conditions  from 
which  it  sprang,  is  a  weak  race.  There  are  some  negroes 
of  this  type — those  whom  Dr.  Washington  calls  the  "intel 
lectuals" — but  the  mass  of  the  race  is  coming  to  appreciate 
the  strength,  the  fidelity,  the  glory  of  its  fathers,  and  they 
are  clinging  more  tenaciously  to  their  traditions.  One  of 
the  splendid  things  about  Hampton  and  Tuskegee  is  the 
fact  that  every  student  is  taught  to  glory  in  the  history  of 
his  people.  Not  to  be  proud  of  its  failures,  of  course,  but  to 
be  proud  of  the  fact  that  in  those  earlier  generations  there 
was  that  latent  capacity  which,  bequeathed  to  the  present 
generation,  makes  progress  possible. 

Negro  Music. 

The  most  distinctive  music  of  America  is  the  old  planta 
tion  melodies.  Wherever  Negroes  sing  these  in  the  real 
spirit,  without  being  ashamed  of  them — as  I  have  found 
to  be  the  case  in  one  or  two  schools — there  is  a  richness 
of  harmony  and  a  depth  of  soul  that  is  possessed  by  no 
other  music  that  I  have  heard.  Even  the  children  at  the 
Penn  School  on  St.  Helena  Island,  led  by  the  clear,  rich 
voice  of  one  of  their  own  number,  put  such  splendid  feel 
ing  into  one  of  these  old  spirituals  as  to  transport  one  out 
of  himself  into  a  world  where  manhood  and  womanhood 
win  the  final  victory  in  the  long  struggle  with  suffering. 
It  seems  to  me  almost  criminal  that  the  negro  children  in 
the  public  schools  are  not  taught  more  of  these  old  melodies. 
They  voice  the  feeling  of  a  past  age,  to  be  sure,  but  an  age 
which  should  not  be  allowed  to  pass  from  memory.  Here 
it  should  be  mentioned  that  some  of  the  best  negro  musi 
cians  are  building  on  the  basis  of  these  old  spirituals  to 
make  a  music  suited  to  the  Negro  of  this  day.  One  of  the 
best  illustrations  of  this  that  I  have  heard  is  a  splendid 


LEADERSHIP  AND  RACE  PRIDE  41 

piece  of  music  based  on  the  old  song,  "Swing  Low,  Sweet 
Chariot,"  written  by  Professor  Smith,  the  bandmaster  at 
Tuskegee,  and  rendered  by  the  student  band.  This,  in  my 
judgment,  is  one  of  the  finest  ways  of  cultivating  this  race 
pride  and  race  consciousness  which  is  just  bursting  into 
bloom. 

Collection  of  Books  and  Pictures. 

Another  indication  of  the  growth  of  race  pride  is  the 
fact  that  Negroes  in  an  increasing  number  are  now  dili 
gently  collecting  all  the  old  manuscripts,  books,  pictures 
etc.,  that  bear  on  the  history  of  the  race.  They  are  getting 
anxious  to  know  more  of  their  past,  to  understand  the  mo 
tives  that  actuated  their  forefathers,  to  live  over  in  sym 
pathetic  feeling  the  old  days,  the  events  of  which  have 
stamped  themselves  indelibly  on  the  race.  Mr.  Moorland, 
of  Washington,  one  of  the  secretaries  of  the  Colored  Men's 
Department  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association, 
has  been  one  of  the  most  industrious  and  successful  col 
lectors  of  such  material,  concerning  the  Negro's  past  his 
tory.  It  is  altogether  likely  that  he  has  the  best  private 
library  of  this  kind  now  in  existence.  A  number  of  the 
negro  colleges  have  secured  very  valuable  collections 
through  similar  sources.  Not  only  are  these  people  inter 
ested  in  the  history  of  the  past,  but  many  of  them  are  dili 
gent  collectors  of  materials  showing  the  present  successes 
and  progress  of  their  group.  Thus  you  will  find  Dr.  Booker 
T.  Washington's  books  in  many  of  the  humble  homes,  be 
cause  not  only  of  his  career,  but  because  of  what  he  says 
of  negro  progress,  in  which  he  holds  out  a  real  hope  to  all 
who  are  struggling  upward. 

Growth  of  Business  Interest. 

Another  indication  of  the  growth  of  race  pride  is  the 
large  variety  of  business  enterprises  which  are  springing 


42     PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

up  all  over  the  South,  the  largest  asset  of  which  is  this 
desire  of  the  common  people  to  favor  their  own  race.  There 
are  literally  scores  of  insurance  companies,  fifty-six  banks, 
drug1  stores  unnumbered,  barber  shops,  livery  stables,  mer 
cantile  establishments,  printing  houses,  newspapers  and 
periodicals  circulated  among  Negroes  alone,  a  negro  doll 
factory  and  a  negro  calendar  factory. 

Many  of  these  business  enterprises,  such  as  barber  shops, 
drug  stores  and  mercantile  establishments  are  patronized  by 
the  whites  as  well  as  the  blacks.  But  the  fact  that  the 
Negroes  have  their  own  business  houses  and  that  they  have 
confidence  in  them  is  a  clear  indication  of  a  new  race  con 
sciousness.  In  similar  manner,  the  increasing  number  of 
negro  physicians,  dentists  and  lawyers,  who  get  a  good 
practice  among  their  own  people,  proves  that  the  race  is 
beginning  to  believe  in  itself.  It  has  not  been  many  years 
since  a  Negro  would  have  laughed  at  the  idea  that  another 
Negro  could  do  the  medical  work  in  his  home.  They  had  no 
confidence  in  the  ability  of  one  of  their  own  race  to  meet 
their  professional  needs.  But  this  is  changing  rapidly,  and 
the  time  is  not  far  distant  when  the  mass  of  the  Negroes 
will  look  to  their  own  race  for  the  most  of  their  medical, 
dental  and  legal  advice. 

Negro  Dolls  and  Negro  Calendars. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  signs  of  race  pride  is  to  be 
found  in  the  large  number  of  real  negro  dolls  to  be  seen 
in  the  best  homes.  These  dolls  are  more  expensive  than  the 
white  dolls,  because  they  are  not  made  in  such  large  quan 
tities,  and  it  is  only  within  the  last  few  years  that  there 
has  been  a  demand  for  the  same.  Dr.  R.  H.  Boyd,  of  the 
National  Baptist  Publishing  House,1  has  recently  estab 
lished  a  large  trade  in  these  dolls.  In  order  to  get  manu 
factured  negro  dolls  true  to  life,  and  not  simply  caricatures, 

*See  the  Author's  "Negro  Life  in  the  South,"  pp.  52-54. 


LEADERSHIP  AND  RACE  PRIDE  43 

he  made  a  personal  visit  to  the  German  factories,  furnished 
them  with  hundreds  of  pictures  of  real  Negroes  and  insisted 
on  having  real  likenesses.  The  result  has  been  a  very  pros 
perous  business  in  these  dolls.  When  I  was  in  Dr.  Boyd's 
office  soon  after  Christmas  a  year  ago  I  saw  a  great  num 
ber  of  checks  being  returned  to  merchants  all  over  the 
South  who  had  ordered  these  dolls  in  much  larger  num 
bers  than  could  be  supplied.  Recently  I  have  talked  with 
the  manager  of  this  department,  and  he  told  me  the  house 
had  sold  two  carloads  of  these  dolls  during  the  Christmas 
holidays  of  1911.  Twenty-five  years  ago  negro  parents 
were  unwilling  for  their  children  to  have  negro  dolls,  but 
now  they  are  willing  to  pay  an  extra  price  for  them.  This 
is  a  clear  indication  of  a  growing  race  consciousness.  In 
like  manner,  a  negro  calendar  factory  in  Louisville,  Ky.,  is 
doing  a  thriving  business. 

Pride  in  Race  Leadership. 

Perhaps  the  most  encouraging  feature  of  the  whole 
situation  is  the  pride  which  Negroes  have  in  the  leadership 
of  their  own  blood.  A  Southern  white  woman  teaching  a 
Sunday  School  class  of  negro  boys  started  to  tell  a  story 
recently  of  a  boy  who  had  succeeded.  One  of  the  negro 
boys  stopped  her  by  saying :  "Please,  miss,  is  it  a  white  boy 
you're  talking  about?  If  it  is,  we  don't  want  to  hear  it." 

Are  There  Leaders  Without  Caucasian  Ancestry? 

In  the  beginning  of  this  paragraph  I  wish  to  make  it 
clear,  that  I  do  not  for  one  moment  discount  those  splendid 
leaders  of  the  race  who  have  a  mixed  ancestry.  They  are 
a  noble  band  and  are  doing  a  noble  work,  making  a  con 
tribution  not  only  to  their  own  race,  but  perhaps  to  all  races. 
One  of  the  common  sayings  is,  however,  that  the  men  who 
are  leaders  of  the  negro  race  are  all  of  mixed  blood  and 
get  their  powers  of  initiative  and  leadership  from  the  white 


44  PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

race.  Perhaps  this  feeling  has  been  somewhat  accentuated 
by  the  fact  that  Douglas  and  Washington  and  a  number  of 
the  more  prominent  leaders  have  been  men  of  mixed  an 
cestry.  But  many  of  these  men  came  into  places  of  leader 
ship,  partly  because  of  their  more  favored  training,  and  not 
alone  because  of  their  ability.  It  ought  further  to  be  said 
that  some  of  the  best  of  these  leaders,  such  as  Dr.  Wash 
ington,  while  they  have  white  blood  in  their  veins,  are  real 
Negroes  in  inheritance,  in  temper  and  feeling.  No  one  who 
knows  Dr.  Washington  could  for  one  moment  doubt  that 
his  mother — a  slave  woman — stamped  her  life  indelibly 
upon  him.  But  there  are  many  leaders  of  the  race,  perhaps 
not  so  prominent  as  Washington,  but  of  the  same  fiber  of 
efficiency  and  ability,  who  can  trace  their  ancestry  and  show 
no  strain  of  white  blood. 

Major  R.  R.  Moton. 

The  first  man  in  this  class  to  whom  any  man's  mind 
would  readily  turn  in  naming  such  a  list  is  Major  R.  R. 
Moton,  the  commandant  and  disciplinarian  at  Hampton  In 
stitute.  It  has  been  my  good  fortune  to  come  to  know 
Major  Moton  quite  well  in  the  visits  I  have  made  to  Hamp 
ton.  He  is  one  of  the  few  men  in  America  who  can  trace 
their  ancestry  on  both  sides  in  unbroken  line  across  the  seas. 
His  great-grandfather  was  an  African  chief,  and  the 
Major's  splendid  bearing  indicates  that  he  has  lost  none  of 
his  ancestor's  regal  qualities.  I  have  heard  more  than  one 
Southern  white  man  say  that  Major  Moton  was  the  sanest 
and  strongest  representative  of  the  negro  race  they  had  ever 
met.  Others  have  said  to  me  that  he  is  the  best  speaker — 
white  or  black — they  have  ever  heard,  and  yet  he  does  not 
claim  to  be  a  speaker  at  all.  He  has  a  clear  head,  a  noble 
heart,  and  a  manly  bearing  which  at  once  convince  you 
that  he  has  a  message  worth  while  and  is  not  afraid  to 
give  it. 


LEADERSHIP  AND  RACE  PRIDE  45 

Major  Moton  holds  a  most  delicate  position  at  Hamp 
ton.  In  the  college  community  there  are  pure  Negroes, 
mulattoes,  Indians,  Northern  white  people,  Southern  white 
people — all  working  for  the  same  great  cause — the  eleva 
tion  of  the  race.  It  is  no  easy  matter  to  harmonize  all  of 
these  types,  and  yet  so  rare  is  his  tact  and  so  true  is  his  judg 
ment  that  each  group  gives  him  enthusiastic  support. 
Washington  has  said  of  him:  "It  has  been  through  con 
tact  with  men  like  Major  Moton  that  I  have  received  a  kind 
of  education  no  books  could  impart."  J  It  would  be  worth 
a  trip  to  Hampton  just  to  know  Major  Moton.  If  more  of 
our  Southern  white  people  could  see  him,  so  calm,  so  un 
ostentatious,  so  unpresuming,  and  yet  so  efficient  and  thor 
ough,  they  would  never  say  again  that  the  negro  race  could 
not  produce  a  pure-blood  leader. 

George  W.  Carver. 

Another  negro  educator,  whom  I  have  known  for  eigh 
teen  years,  is  Professor  Carver,  of  Tuskegee.  He  is  simple, 
modest,  retiring,  and  yet  clearly  confident  when  talking  in 
terms  of  his  specialty.  He  knows  his  business  and  soon 
convinces  you  that  he  knows  it.  Of  him  Sir  Henry  John 
ston,  in  his  very  full  volume,  "The  Negro  in  the  New 
World,"  says:  "Professor  Carver,  who  teaches  scientific 
agriculture,  botany,  agricultural  chemistry,  etc.,  is,  as  re 
gards  complexion  and  features,  an  absolute  Negro;  but  in 
cut  of  clothes,  the  accent  of  his  speech,  the  soundness  of  his 
science,  he  might  be  professor  of  science,  not  at  Tuskegee, 
but  at  Oxford  or  Cambridge."2 

Dr.  Joseph  C.  Price. 

Or  to  take  one  more  example  of  a  leader  in  negro  edu 
cation,  one  would  readily  turn  to  Dr.  Joseph  Price,  the  first 
President  of  Livingston  College,  in  North  Carolina.  He 

luMy  Larger  Education,"  p.  219. 

2"The  Negro  in  the  New  World,"  p.  416. 


46  PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

was  born  a  slave  in  North  Carolina  five  years  before  the 
opening  of  the  Civil  War ;  was  educated  at  Lincoln  Univer 
sity;  was  ordained  as  an  elder  in  the  A.  M.  E.  Church; 
served  in  the  General  Conference  of  that  body  for  1880; 
was  appointed  by  the  President  of  the  United  States  to  a 
post  of  foreign  honor,  which  he  refused ;  was  a  representa 
tive  for  his  church  in  England  at  the  Ecumenical  Confer 
ence  of  1881,  where  he  laid  the  foundation  for  the  establish 
ment  of  Livingston  College,  to  which  he  gave  the  remain 
der  of  his  life.  His  successor  has  said  of  him  r1  "He  was 
no  self-seeker.  He  did  not  labor  for  the  notice  of  society  or 
the  prizes  of  the  world,  but  the  one  controlling  idea  of  his 
life  was  to  lift  his  race  out  of  ignorance  and  moral  degrada 
tion  into  which  the  misfortune  of  a  cruel  past  had  sunk 
them,  .and  to  lead  them  to  higher  planes  of  intelligence  and 
social  refinement.  He  was  forcible  in  his  appeals  for  jus 
tice  and  fair  dealing,  honest  in  his  statements  and  true  to 
his  convictions,  yet  he  carried  no  gall  in  his  nature.  No 
bitterness  escaped  his  lips.  There  was  no  rancor  in  his 
bosom.  He  had  faith  in  the  power  of  Christ  to  eradicate 
the  evils  of  society.  He  believed  in  the  ultimate  triumph 
of  truth  and  righteousness  and  was  satisfied  that  the  evils 
of  society  will  be  rooted  out."  Dr.  Booker  T.  Washington 
called  him  "by  all  odds  the  leading  and  most  prominent  man 
of  his  race  in  North  Carolina  and  one  of  the  most  eloquent 
men  in  the  country."2 

Leaders  in  Business  Life. 

There  are  two  very  interesting  men  in  business  life  in 
the  South  about  whom  I  ought  to  say  a  word.  One  is 
Isaiah  Montgomery  and  the  other  is  Charles  Banks.  Isaiah 
Montgomery  was  the  slave  of  Joseph  Davis,  the  brother  of 
President  Jefferson  Davis  of  the  Confederacy.  Both  of 


frogman's  "Progress  of  a  Race,"  pp.  523-524. 
'"The  Story  of  the  Negro,"  p.  24. 


LEADERSHIP  AND  RACE  PRIDE  47 

the  Davis  brothers  were  the  best  type  of  slave  owners. 
They  were  kindly  in  the  fullest  degree  to  their  slaves,  gave 
them  a  practical  form  of  self-government,  allowed  them 
much  of  free  time  to  work  for  themselves,  gave  the  brighter 
ones  a  chance  to  acquire  some  education,  and  in  every  way 
looked  after  their  permanent  welfare.  The  father  of  Isaiah 
Montgomery  learned  to  read  and  write  on  the  plantation 
of  Joseph  Davis,  and  after  the  war  the  father  and  two  sons 
bought  the  old  plantation  at  a  price  of  three  hundred  thou 
sand  dollars.  In  1890  Isaiah  Montgomery  was  the  man 
who  led  a  party  of  negro  men  up  the  Mississippi  Delta  to 
the  place  now  known  as  Mound  Bayou,  and  there  they 
cleared  the  forest  and  started  the  present  negro  town. 
Mound  Bayou  has  a  bank,  a  number  of  cotton  gins,  a  tele 
phone  exchange,  a  newspaper,  and,  I  believe,  waterworks 
and  electric  lights.  There  are  between  four  and  five  thou 
sand  inhabitants,  all  Negroes,  and  they  own  about  30,000 
acres  of  land.  To  have  founded  such  a  town ;  to  have 
brought  it  to  its  present  state  of  efficiency;  to  be  able  to 
have  the  type  of  law  and  order  the  citizens  have — these 
things  mark  out  this  man  as  one  of  genuine  leadership. 
Associated  with  Montgomery  in  this  work  has  been  a  much 
younger  though  no  less  forceful  man,  Charles  Banks, 
banker,  cotton  broker,  real  estate  dealer,  head  of  a  large 
corporation  for  erecting  a  big  cotton  oil  mill,  and  planter. 
Dr.  Booker  T.  Washington  has  described  him  so  much  bet 
ter  than  anyone  else  could,  I  quote  two  paragraphs  from 
his  statement :  * 

"I  have  been  watching  him  do  things,  watching  him 
grow,  and  as  I  have  studied  him  more  closely  my  admira 
tion  for  this  big,  quiet,  graceful  giant  has  steadily  increased. 
One  thing  that  has  always  impressed  itself  upon  me  in  re 
gard  to  Mr.  Banks  is  the  fact  that  he  never  claims  credit 
for  doing  anything  that  he  can  give  credit  to  other  people 

l"My  Larger  Education,"  pp.  207-208, 


48  PRESENT.  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

for  doing.  He  has  never  made  an  effort  to  make  himself 
prominent.  He  simply  prefers  to  get  a  job  done,  and  if  he 
can  use  other  people  and  give  them  credit  for  doing  the 
work,  he  is  happy  to  do  so. 

"At  the  present  time  Charles  Banks  is  not,  by  any  means, 
the  wealthiest,  but  I  think  I  am  safe  in  saying  that  he  is 
the  most  influential  negro  business  man  in  the  United  States. 
He  is  the  leading  negro  banker  in  Mississippi,  where  there 
are  eleven  negro  banks,  and  he  is  Secretary  and  Treasurer 
of  the  large  benefit  association  in  that  State — namely,  that 
attached  to  the  Masonic  order — which  paid  death  claims  in 
1910  to  the  amount  of  one  hundred  and  ninety-five  thousand 
dollars  and  had  a  cash  balance  of  eighty  thousand  dollars. 
He  organized  and  has  been  the  moving  spirit  in  the  State 
organization  of  the  Business  League  in  Mississippi,  and  has 
been  for  a  number  of  years  the  Vice-President  of  the 
National  Negro  Business  League." 

"Charles  Banks  is,  however,  more  than  a  successful  busi 
ness  man.  He  is  a  leader  of  his  race  and  a  broad-minded 
and  public-spirited  citizen.  Although  he  holds  no  public 
office,  and,  so  far  as  I  know,  has  no  desire  to  do  so,  there 
are,  in  my  opinion,  few  men,  either  white  or  black,  in  Mis 
sissippi  today  who  are  performing,  directly  or  indirectly,  a 
more  important  service  to  their  State  than  Charles  Banks." 

Literary  Leadership. 

If  one  had  space  it  would  be  well  to  say  a  word  about 
Phillis  Wheatley,  that  native  African  girl  brought  to  Bos 
ton  as  a  slave  child,  with  scarcely  more  than  a  loin  cloth  for 
clothes,  and  bought  by  a  kindly  Boston  woman  at  the  slave 
market.  Her  verses  are  such  as  to  prove  the  latent  literary 
possibilities  of  the  race.  Well  can  we  pass  to  consider  Paul 
Laurence  Dunbar  as  the  best  type  of  nego  poet.  The  parents 
of  Dunbar  were  pure-blood  Negroes,  slaves  in  Kentucky. 
Before  the  war,  the  father  ran  away  to  Canada  and  the 
mother  followed  on  to  Dayton,  Ohio,  where  the  son  was 


LEADERSHIP  AND  RACE  PRIDE  49 

born.  He  grew  up  in  the  midst  of  the  most  dire  poverty, 
the  father  dying  while  the  son  was  the  merest  child.  When 
old  enough  to  work,  he  became  an  elevator  boy,  at  which 
work  he  did  some  of  his  earliest  composing.  William  Dean 
Howells  says  of  his  work  : 

"What  struck  me  in  reading  Mr.  Dunbar's  poetry  was 
what  had  already  struck  his  friends  in  Ohio  and  Indiana,  in 
Kentucky  and  Illinois.  They  had  felt,  as  I  felt,  that,  how 
ever  gifted  his  race  had  proven  itself  in  music,  in  oratory,  in 
several  of  the  other  arts,  here  was  the  first  instance  of  an 
American  Negro  who  had  evinced  innate  distinction  in  lit 
erature.  In  my  criticism  of  his  book  I  had  alleged  Dumas 
in  France,  and  I  had  forgetfully  failed  to  allege  the  far 
greater  Pushkin  in  Russia;  but  these  were  both  mulattoes, 
who  might  have  been  supposed  to  derive  their  qualities  from 
white  blood  vastly  more  artistic  than  ours,  and  who  were 
the  creatures  of  an  environment  more  favorable  to  their 
literary  development.  So  far  as  I  could  remember,  Paul 
Dunbar  was  the  only  man  of  pure  African  blood  and  of 
American  civilization  to  feel  the  negro  life  aesthetically 
and  express  it  lyrically.  It  seemed  to  me  that  this  had 
come  to  its  most  modern  consciousness  in  him,  and  that  his 
brilliant  and  unique  achievement  was  to  have  studied  the 
American  Negro  objectively,  and  to  have  represented  him 
as  he  found  him  to  be,  with  humor,  with  sympathy,  and  yet 
with  what  the  reader  must  instinctively  feel  to  be  the  entire 
truthfulness.  I  said  that  a  race  which  had  come  to  this 
effect  in  any  member  of  it,  had  attained  civilization  in  him, 
and  I  permitted  myself  the  imaginative  prophecy  that  the 
hostilities  and  the  prejudices  which  had  so  long  constrained 
his  race  were  destined  to  vanish  in  the  arts ;  that  these  were 
to  be  the  final  proof  that  God  had  made  of  one  blood  all 
nations  of  men.  I  thought  his  merits  positive,  and  not  com 
parative;  and  I  held  that  if  his  black  poems  had  been  writ 
ten  by  a  white  man,  I  should  not  have  found  them  less  ad- 


50  PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

mirable.  I  accepted  them  as  an  evidence  of  the  essential 
unity  of  the  human  race,  which  does  not  think  or  feel  black 
in  one  and  white  in  another,  but  humanly  in  all.  .  .  . 
He  has  at  least  produced  something  that,  however  we  may 
critically  disagree  about  it,  we  cannot  well  refuse  to  enjoy; 
in  more  than  one  piece  he  has  produced  a  work  of  art."  J 

I  have  read  with  great  care  all  of  Dunbar's  four  volumes 
of  poems  and  his  several  volumes  of  stories.  Many  of  them 
are  very  charming.  What  is  most  interesting  to  me  about 
them  is  the  keen  appreciation  they  show  of  the  traits  of 
negro  character.  They  are  intensely  human,  so  full  of  the 
every-day  experiences,  that  they  possess  a  charm  all  their 
own.  What  could  be  more  human  and  real  than  this:2 

"Den  you  men's  de  mule's  ol'  ha'ness, 

An'  you  men's  de  broken  chair. 
Hummin'  all  de  time  you's  wo'kin* 

Some  ol'  common  kind  o'  air. 
Evah  now  an'  then  you  looks  out, 

Tryin'  mighty  ha'd  to  frown, 
But  you  cain't,  you's  glad  hit's  rainin', 

An'  dey's  time  to  tinker  'roun'." 

Or  what  is  there  that  betrays  the  changing  moods  of  the 
Negro  more  clearly  or  more  beautifully  than  this:8 

"An'  my  wife  an'  all  de  othahs — 

Male  an'  female,  small  an'  big — 
Even  up  to  gray-haired  granny, 

Seems  jes'  boun'  to  do  a  jig; 
'Twell  I  change  the  style  o'  music, 

Change  de  movement  an'  de  time, 
An'  de  ringin'  little  banjo 

Plays  an  ol'  hea't-feelin'  hime." 

Although  Dunbar  never  lived  in  the  South,  he  received 
from  his  mother  not  only  a  knowledge  of  Southern  condi 
tions,  but  such  a  sympathetic  feeling  for  its  life  that  he  has 
done  more  than  any  other  Negro  to  give  a  right  setting  to 

'Introduction  to  "Lyrics  of  Lowlv  Life,"  XVI,  XVII,  XX. 
2"Lyrics  of  the  Hearthside,"  p.  141. 
"'Lyrics  of  Lowly  Life,"  p.  43. 


LEADERSHIP  AND  RACE  PRIDE  51 

its  joys  and  tragedies.    Here  is  a  sample  of  this  genuine  un 
derstanding  of  the  old  conditions  and  the  old  Negro:1 

"Dey  have  lef  de  ole  plantation  to  de  swallers, 

But  it  hoi's  in  me  a  lover  till  de  las'; 
Fu'  I  fin'  hyeah  in  de  memory  dat  follers 
All  dat  loved  me  an'  dat  I  loved  in  de  pas'. 

So  I'll  stay  an'  watch  de  deah  ole  place  an'  tend  it 
Ez  I  used  to  in  de  happy  days  gone  by. 

Twell  de  otah  Mastah  thinks  it's  time  to  end  it, 
An'  calls  me  to  my  qua'ters  in  de  sky." 

He  has  also  a  deep  sympathy  which  enters  into  the  mood 
of  the  Negro  as  perhaps  no  white  man  ever  could.  What 
could  be  more  tender  and  beautiful  than  this:2 

"Two  little  boots  all  rough  an*  wo', 

Two  little  boots. 
Laws,  Fs  kissed  'em  times  befo', 

Dese  little  boots. 
Seems  de  toes  a-peepin'  thoo* 
Dis  hyeah  hole  an'  sayin'  'Boo,' 
Evah  time  d«y  looks  at  you — 

Dese  little  boots. 

"Membah  de  time  he  put  'em  on, 

Dese  little  boots ; 
Riz  an'  called  fu'  'em  by  dawn, 

Dese  little  boots; 
Den  he  tromped  the  livelong  day, 
Laffin'  in  his  happy  way, 
Evaht'ing  he  had  to  say, 

'My  little  boots/ 

"Kickin'  the  san'  de  whole  day  long, 

Dem  little  boots; 
Good  de  cobblah  made  'em  strong, 

Dem  little  boots! 
Rocks  was  fu'  dat  baby's  use, 
Ton  had  to  stan'  abuse 
Wen  you  tu'ned  dese  chatnpeens  loose, 

Dese  little  boots! 

"Use  to  make  de  ol'  cat  cry, 

Dese  little  boots; 
Den  you  walked  it  mighty  high, 
Proud  little  boots! 

^'Lyrics  of  Lowly  Life,"  p.  160. 
'"Lyrics  of  Love  and  Laughter,"  pp.  1-3. 


52  PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

Ahms  akimboo,  stan'in'  wide, 
Eyes  a-sayin'  'Dis  is  pride !' 
Den   de   manny-baby   stride! 
You  little  boots. 

"Somehow  you  don*  seem  so  gay, 

Po'  little  boots, 
Sence  yo'  ownah  went  awav. 

Po'  little  boots! 

Yo'  bright  tops  don'  look  so  red, 
Dese  brass  tips  is  dull  an'  dead; 
"Goo-by,"  what  de  baby  said; 

Deah  little  boots! 

"Ain't  you  kin'  o'  sad  yo'se'f, 

You  little  boots? 
Dis  is  all  his  mam's  lef, 

Two  little  boots. 
Sence  huh  baby  gone  an'  died, 
Heaven  itse'f  hit  seem  to  hide 
Des  a  little  bit  inside 

Two  little  boots." 

Or  what  goes  right  to  the  heart  of  the  old  Southern  love 
on  the  part  of  the  child  for  the  Negro,  and  that  of  the  Negro 
for  the  child,  like  this : x 

"Little  mas'  a-axin' 

'Who  is  Santy  Glaus?' 
Meks  it  kin'  o'  taxin' 

Not  to  brek  de  laws-. 
Chillun's  pow'ful   tryin' 

To  a  pusson's  grace 
Wen  dey  go  a  pryin' 

Right  on  th'oo  you'  face 
Down  among  yo'  feelin's ; 

Jes'  'pears  lak  dat  you 
Got  to  change  you'  dealin's 

So's  to  tell  'em  true."1 

One  of  the  charming  elements  in  all  of  Dunbar's  work 
is  its  freedom  from  any  cynicism  or  bitterness.  Born  of 
slave  parents,  rocked  in  the  cradle  of  dire  poverty,  strug 
gling  into  manhood  through  the  grind  of  a  daily  task  which 
made  it  next  to  impossible  for  him  to  get  that  knowledge 
for  which  his  soul  thirsted — such  a  person  one  would  not 

"'Lyrics  of  the  Hearthside,"  p.  201. 


LEADERSHIP  AND  RACE  PRIDE  S3 

have  been  surprised  to  hear  carping  about  the  hardships 
and  disappointments  of  life.  Instead  of  that,  there  is  the 
most  heroic  note  running  all  through  his  writings,  and  one 
never  puts  them  down  but  that  he  feels  himself  a  little  bet 
ter  for  having  read  them.  Any  race  might  well  be  proud 
of  having  produced  a  Dunbar. 

Ministerial  Leadership. 

Dr.  Charles  T.  Walker  was  born  a  slave  in  Richmond 
County,  Georgia,  in  1859.  His  father  was  his  master's 
coachman,  a  very  religious  man,  deacon  in  the  little  slave 
Baptist  Church  organized  at  Hepsibah,  1848.  Several  of 
his  uncles  were  preachers.  Left  an  orphan  at  eight,  be 
coming  a  Christian  at  fourteen,  working  his  way  painfully 
through  the  public  schools,  he  finally  entered  the  Theologi 
cal  Institute  at  Augusta,  Georgia.  Licensed  to  preach  at 
eighteen,  he  became  the  pastor  of  his  home  church  at  Hep 
sibah.  He  was  for  a  number  of  years  the  pastor  of  Mount 
Olivet  Baptist  Church  in  New  York  City,  and  is  now  pastor 
of  the  Tabernacle  Baptist  Church,  Augusta,  Georgia.  Not 
only  is  he  a  preacher  of  great  power,  but  he  has  fostered 
education  and  journalism  among  his  people.  He  was  one 
of  the  founders  of  the  Baptist  Institute  of  Augusta,  is  a 
trustee  of  Atlanta  Baptist  College,  helped  in  the  founding  of 
the  Augusta  Sentinel,  has  written  books  on  travel,  etc.  It 
was  due  to  the  effort  of  Dr.  Walker  and  a  few  other  Negroes 
that  the  Georgia  State  Colored  Fair  was  established.  While 
a  pastor  in  New  York  he  helped  in  the  establishment  of  a 
Colored  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  with  five  hun 
dred  members.  He  was  the  man  chosen  by  the  Interna 
tional  Convention  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association 
to  represent  his  race  in  an  address  at  that  gathering  in 
Toronto,  Canada,  1910.  His  address  was  simple,  sane, 
masterful.  It  had  a  power  of  conviction  and  a  deep  pas 
sion  of  earnestness  which  gripped  the  heart  and  conscience 


54    PRESENT.  FORCES  IN.  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

of  those  hundreds  of  white  men  assembled  from  every  cor 
ner  of  America.  He  has  a  sparkling  wit,  a  fine  sense  of 
humor,  a  remarkable  ability  in  story-telling,  but  with  it  all 
that  genuine  sense  of  the  bigness  of  life  which  makes  him 
a  power  when  speaking  either  to  white  or  colored  men. 
President  Taft  has  said  of  him  that  he  is  the  most  eloquent 
man  to  whom  he  has  ever  listened.  I  could  not  better  prove 
his  sanity  and  his  right  to  leadership  than  to  quote  what 
Washington  says  in  his  motto:  "I  have  determined  never 
to  be  guilty  of  ingratitude,  never  to  desert  a  friend,  and 
never  to  strike  back  at  an  enemy."  I  have  heard  Dr. 
Walker  speak  both  to  Northern  and  Southern  men,  and, 
so  far  as  I  have  ever  been  able  to  learn,  he  lives  up  to 
his  motto. 

George  W.  Clinton. 

I  can  give  space  to  only  one  more  leader.  Bishop  Clin 
ton,  of  the  A.  M.  E.  Zion  Church,  was  born  a  slave  in 
South  Carolina,  was  graduated  from  the  University  of 
South  Carolina  with  the  class  of  1874,  at  the  time  when 
Negro  students  were  admitted  to  that  institution.  Washing 
ton  says  of  him : a 

"Bishop  Clinton  has  done  a  great  service  to  the  denomi 
nation  to  which  he  belongs,  and  his  years  of  service  have 
brought  him  many  honors  and  distinctions.  He  founded  the 
African  Methodist  Episcopal  Zion  Quarterly  Review,  and 
edited  for  a  time  another  publication  of  the  African  Meth 
odist  Episcopal  Conferences  at  home  and  abroad.  He  is  a 
trustee  of  Livingstone  College,  Chairman  of  the  Publishing 
Board,  has  served  as  a  member  of  the  International  Con 
vention  of  Arbitration,  and  is  Vice-President  of  the  Inter 
national  Sunday  School  Union. 

"Bishop  Clinton  is  a  man  of  a  very  different  type  from 
the  other  men  of  pure  African  blood  I  have  mentioned. 

'My  Larger  Education,"  pp.  220,  222,  223. 


LEADERSHIP  AND  RACE  PRIDE  55 

Although  he  says  he  is  fifty  years  of  age,  he  is,  in  appear 
ance  and  manner,  the  youngest  man  in  the  group.  An  erect, 
commanding  figure,  with  a  high,  broad  forehead,  rather 
refined  features,  and  fresh,  frank,  almost  boyish  manner, 
he  is  the  kind  of  man  who  everywhere  wins  confidence  and 
respect. 

"Although  Bishop  Clinton  is  by  profession  a  minister 
and  has  been  all  his  life  in  the  service  of  the  church,  he 
is,  of  all  the  men  I  have  named,  the  most  aggressive  in  his 
manner  and  the  most  soldierly  in  his  bearing.  .  .  . 

"I  first  made  the  acquaintance  of  Bishop  Clinton  when 
he  came  to  Tuskegee  in  1893  as  representative  of  the 
African  Methodist  Episcopal  Zion  Church  at  the  dedica 
tion  of  the  Phelps  Hall  Bible  Training  School.  The  next 
year  he  came  to  Tuskegee  as  one  of  the  lecturers  in  that 
school,  and  he  has  spent  some  time  at  Tuskegee  every  year 
since  then,  assisting  in  the  work  of  that  institution. 

"Bishop  Clinton  has  been  of  great  assistance  to  us,  not 
only  in  our  work  at  Tuskegee,  but  in  the  larger  work  we 
have  been  trying  to  do  in  arousing  interest  throughout  the 
country  in  the  Negro.  He  organized  in  Carolina  in  1910 
what  I  think  was  the  most  successful  educational  campaign 
I  have  yet  been  able  to  make  in  any  of  the  Southern  States." 

Summary. 

In  this  brief  sketch  of  negro  leadership  of  pure  blood,  I 
have  passed  over  many  who  are  equally  prominent  and 
scores  of  others  equally  efficient,  though  less  prominent.  I 
have  not  spoken  of  R.  R.  Wright,  of  Georgia,  perhaps  the 
most  influential  Negro  in  the  State,  student,  prolific  writer 
on  economic  questions,  President  of  the  State  Industrial 
Normal,  a  real  power  in  the  negro  State  Fair.  He  is  the 
one  who,  as  a  boy,  when  asked  what  message  should  be 
given  to  the  white  people  about  the  Negroes,  said:  "Tell 
them  we  are  rising."  Nor  have  I  found  space  to  mention 


56     PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

as  conspicuous  a  leader  as  Alexander  Crummell,  the  great 
missionary  to  Liberia;  or  Lott  Gary;  or  Lucy  Laney,  the 
industrial  educator  of  women  in  Georgia;  or  M.  C.  B. 
Mason,  the  Secretary  of  the  Freedman's  Aid  Society;  or 
Bishop  Tyree,  of  Nashville;  or  Virginia  Randolph,  who, 
though  obscure  as  to  reputation,  has  proved  herself  so  much 
a  leader  as  to  have  practically  transformed  all  the  rural 
schools  of  Henrico  County,  Virginia. 

It  has  not  been  possible  to  say  anything  about  T.  C. 
Walker,  who  graduated  from  Hampton  twenty-five  years 
ago,  went  back  to  Gloucester  County,  Virginia,  and  began 
a  crusade  among  his  people  for  sobriety  and  decency,  for 
buying  land,  building  homes,  erecting  schools,  etc.  The 
outcome  is  that  seven  thousand  negroes  now  own  one  thou 
sand  eight  hundred  and  fifty-seven  farm  plots  in  that 
county — an  average  of  a  farm  plot  for  every  family  in 
the  county.  Very  few  live  in  one-roomed  houses;  I  did 
not  see  one  in  a  three  days'  drive  through  the  country. 
They  have  good  schools  and  good  churches.  They  have 
run  whiskey  practically  out  of  the  country,  and  during1  the 
year  1910  there  were  only  six  convictions  for  serious  crimes 
among  the  Negroes  of  the  county.  These  were  for  shoot 
ing,  cutting  and  stealing.  All  this  has  come  largely  through 
the  efforts  of  Tom  Walker,  farmer,  lawyer,  Sunday  school 
worker,  reformer  and  citizen.  How  many  hundreds  of 
white  counties  in  the  South  need  a  white  man  who  can  and 
will  do  for  the  white  farmers  what  Walker  has  done  for 
the  negro  farmers  of  Gloucester  County? 

If  space  would  permit,  one  might  wisely  speak  of  D.  W. 
Davis,  the  author  of  the  poems  entitled  "Weh  Down  Souf ;" 
of  William  Washington  Brown ;  of  Edward  Wilbur  Blyden, 
the  scholar ;  of  Wood,  the  inventor ;  of  J.  H.  Smith,  United 
States  Minister  to  Liberia;  of  Miss  Georgia  Washington, 
Mt.  Meigs,  Ala.,  and  others. 

Enough  has  been  said  and  sufficient  examples  given  to 


LEADERSHIP  AND  RACE  PRIDE  57 

prove  that  the  negro  race  can  and  does  produce  leaders 
of  unmixed  blood.  As  fast  as  the  race  has  a  chance  it  will 
produce  more.  These  examples  have  been  taken  from  suffi 
ciently  varied  fields  to  show  that  they  are  not  freaks  of 
nature  any  more  than  are  the  leaders  of  another  race.  It 
proves  to  me  that  the  negro  race  has  capacity  for  leader 
ship,  perhaps  not  of  the  same  degree  or  of  the  same  quality 
as  the  Anglo-Saxon,  but  capacity  suited  to  its  own  needs. 

What  he  needs  now  is  encouragement.  We  need  to 
hold  up  to  him  the  splendid  examples  of  those  who  have  suc 
ceeded.  We  need  to  help  him  to  a  new  confidence  in  him 
self.  The  books  he  reads  should  place  his  own  leaders  to 
the  front  in  order  that  others  of  the  race  may  aspire  to  that 
fellowship.  Even  if  it  were  true  that  the  negro  race  has  no 
leaders  save  its  mixed-bloods,  it  would  do  no  good  con 
stantly  to  throw  this  into  their  faces.  What  good  does  it 
do  to  tell  a  boy  he  has  always  been  a  failure,  is  now  a  fail 
ure,  and  will  always  be  a  failure  ?  Will  that  help  him  over 
come?  Not  at  all.  It  simply  hardens  him  in  his  indiffer 
ence.  And  yet  that  is  what  many  a  thoughtless  white  per 
son  has  been  doing  with  the  Negro  for  all  these  years.  Even 
if  it  were  true  that  they  have  no  pure-blood  leaders,  we 
ought  to  have  a  better  knowledge  of  human  nature  than  to 
continue  reiterating  this  to  them. 

But  it  is  distinctly  and  positively  not  true.  Outside  of 
two  men — Booker  T.  Washington  and  Frederick  Douglas— 
the  Negroes  of  unmixed  blood  can  show  a  right  to  claim 
equal  rank  among  the  sanest  and  best  leaders  of  the  race. 
And  this  is  true  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  mixed-blood 
Negro  has  had — because  of  accident  of  birth — three  chances 
to  the  black  man's  one  chance  for  developing  leadership. 

Recognition  of  Growing  Race  Consciousness. 

What  we  need  today  is  a  full,  glad  recognition  on  the 
part  of  the  white  people  of  this  growing  race  consciousness 


58     PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

» 

and  race  leadership  among  Negroes.  We  need  to  encourage 
them  to  take  pride  in  themselves.  We  need  to  give  them 
leadership  among  their  own  people  just  as  fast  as  they  are 
able  to  take  it.  We  need  to  make  them  self-sufficient  in 
themselves  just  as  rapidly  as  possible.  To  refuse  to  recog 
nize  their  merits  and  to  close  our  eyes  to  the  facts  of  real 
leadership — this  simply  prolongs  the  day  of  the  Negro's 
worthlessness  and  lack  of  ambition,  proves  the  white  man 
lacking  in  statesmanship,  and  publishes  to  the  world  our 
narrowness  and  littleness  of  soul. 


CHAPTER  III 
NEGRO  POPULATION  AND  RACE  MOVEMENTS 


THE  SLAVE'S  COMPLAINT 

Am  I  sadly  cast  aside, 
On  misfortune's  rugged  tide? 
Will  the  world  my  pains  deride 
Forever? 

Must  I  dwell  in  Slavery's  night, 
And  all  pleasure  take  its  flight. 
Far  beyond  my  feeble  sight, 
Forever? 

Worst  of  all,  must  hope  grow  dim, 
And  withhold  her  cheering  beam? 
Rather  let  me  sleep  and  dream 
Forever ! 

Something  still  my  heart  surveys, 
Groping  through  the  dreary  maze; 
Is  it  Hope?— then  burn  and  blaze 
Forever : 

Leave  me  not  a  wretch  confined, 
Altogether  lame  and  blind— 
Unto  gross  despair  consigned, 
Forever : 

Heaven!   in  whom  I  confide; 
Canst  thou  not  for  all  provide? 
Condescend  to  be  my  guide 
Forever ! 

And  when  this  transient  life  shall  end, 
Oh,  may  some  kind,  eternal  friend 
Bid  me  from  servitude  ascend, 
Forever ! 

— By  a  Slave. 
(60) 


CHAPTER   III 
NEGRO  POPULATION  AND  RACE  MOVEMENTS 

Dr.  Booker  T.  Washington,  writing  in  1899,  said:  "I 
think  I  am  pretty  safe  in  ^predicting  that  the  census  to  be 
taken  in  1900  will  show  that  there  are  not  far  from  ten 
millions  of  people  of  African  descent  in  the  United  States."  * 

Mr.  Thomas  Nelson  Page,  writing  in  1904,  says :  "The 
negro  race  has  already  doubled  three  times  in  the  United 
States  since  the  beginning  of  the  last  century,  and,  unless 
conditions  change,  it  is  possible  that  there  may  be  between 
sixty  and  eighty  millions  of  Negroes  in  this  country  during 
the  century."  2 

During  the  same  year  (1904)  there  appeared  a  book 
by  Dr.  W.  B.  Smith,  of  Tulane  University,  which  at 
tempted  with  seeming  satisfaction  to  prove  that  the  Negro 
will  soon  be  a  negligible  quantity.  "It  is  demonstrated," 
says  Dr.  Smith,  "that  in  these  two  focal  regions  of  the 
African  strength  not  only  is  that  strength  relatively  de 
creasing,  but  it  is  decreasing  faster  and  faster.  The  hour 
cometh  when  neither  by  the  ocean  nor  by  the  gulf  will  it 
signify  more  than  it  now  does  in  Philadelphia  or  New 
York."  8 

Thus  we  are  immediately  faced  with  absolutely  diverse 
opinions  about  the  future  growth  of  the  race  problem.  Mr. 
Wilcox,  of  the  United  States  Bureau  of  Statistics,  thinks 
that  twenty-five  millions  of  Negroes  is  a  liberal  estimate 
for  the  year  2000. 

1('Future  of  American  Negro,"  p.  5. 

The  Negro  the  Southerner's  Problem,"  p.  289. 
'"The  Color  Line,"  p.  204. 

(61) 


'62     PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

The  impression  made  on  one  by  the  reading  of  the  argu 
ments  of  the  statisticians  concerning  the  far  future  (Dr. 
Smith  and  Mr.  Wilcox)  is  that  a  good  part  of  their  labor 
is  necessarily  guesswork  and  cannot  be  otherwise.  The 
censuses  of  1870  and  of  1890  are  allowed  by  all  authori 
ties  to  be  very  inaccurate,  and  earlier  figures  are  none  too 
certain.  Besides,  there  are  no  figures  of  marriages  and 
births  in  past  census  records,  and  all  the  death-rate  figures 
are  exceedingly  questionable.  To  make  predictions  on  such 
uncertain  foundations  is,  therefore,  hazardous  in  the 
extreme. 

One  thing,  however,  can  be  asserted  with  some  degree 
of  certainty,  and  that  is  that  the  relative  increase  of  Negroes 
has  gradually  declined  during  the  past  century,  and  these 
facts  are  still  borne  out  by  the  census  of  1910.  The  follow 
ing  table  shows  the  per  cent  of  increase  for  Negroes  accord 
ing  to  double  census  periods  since  1800 : 

1800-1820 76.8  per  cent 

1720-1840 62.2  per  cent 

1840-1860 54.6  per  cent 

1860-1880 48.2  per  cent 

1880-1000 34.2  per  cent 

1900-1910 11.3  per  cent 

The  increase  from  1890-1900  was  18  per  cent,  so  that 
the  last  census  shows  a  decrease  in  accordance  with  all  the 
figures  of  the  past  century.  The  remarkable  thing  about 
these  figures  is  the  fact  that  there  seems  to  be  a  hastening 
process  in  the  relative  decrease  of  the  Negro.  There  are 
three  States  in  the  South  where  the  Negroes  actually  de 
creased  in  numbers  between  1900  and  1910.  These  are  Ten 
nessee,  Kentucky  and  Maryland.  It  will  be  noted  that  these 
are  border  States,  and  one  would  readily  suppose  that  this 
decrease  is  due  to  migration.  The  census  returns  are  not 
sufficiently  advanced  to  make  it  possible  for  one  to  locate 
the  places  to  which  these  Negroes  have  migrated.  There 
are  small  relative  decreases  in  the  proportion  of  Negroes  to 


NEGRO  POPULATION  AND  RACE  MOVEMENTS      63 

whites  in  all  the  other  Southern  States  save  three — Okla 
homa,  Arkansas  and  West  Virginia.  These  three  States 
show  a  larger  per  cent  of  increase  among  Negroes  than 
among  whites.  In  1900  the  Negro  constituted  32.3  per  cent 
of  the  population  of  the  South  Atlantic  and  South  Central 
States.  In  1910  he  constituted  only  29.8  per  cent,  showing 
a  decided  falling  off.  One  factor  entering  into  this  relative 
decrease  of  the  Negro  is  that  of  emigration  of  Negroes  to 
the  North  and  the  immigration  of  Northern  whites  to  the 
South.  The  figures  for  1910  on  these  points  are  not  yet 
available,  but  it  is  quite  certain  that  the  tendency  will  be 
similar  to  that  of  the  past  two  or  three  decades.  In  1890 
there  were  1,038,000  Southern  whites  living  in  other  States 
outside  of  the  South,  and  in  1900  the  number  had  increased 
to  1,116,000,  a  gain  of  88,000.  In  1890  there  were  582,000 
non-Southern  white  Americans  living  in  the  South,  and  in 
1900  the  number  was  725,000,  a  gain  of  143,000.  There 
fore  it  will  be  seen  that  the  loss  of  whites  over  the  number 
coming  in  is  a  decreasing  quality.  The  net  loss  of  whites 
by  this  migration  in  1890  being  456,000,  and  in  1900  being 
390,000. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  number  of  Negroes  leaving  the 
South  is  an  increasing  quantity.  In  1890  there  were  241,000 
Southern-born  Negroes  (counting  all  men  as  whites  and 
Negroes  which  is  sufficiently  accurate)  living  in  other  than 
Southern  States,  and  in  1900  there  were  349,000.  The  total 
Negro  population  in  other  than  Southern  States  was  in  1900 
911,025,  and  in  1910  it  was  1,078,804.  The  number  of 
Northern  Negroes  coming  South  during  the  decade  was 
only  2,100.  It  will  readily  be  seen,  therefore,  that  this 
migration  affects  the  relative  increase  of  Negroes  and 
whites  in  the  South  in  favor  of  the  latter  race. 

The  increase  of  negro  population  in  the  Southern  States 
during  the  last  decade  has  been  only  10.4  per  cent,  while  for 
the  whole  country  it  has  been  11.3  per  cent.  The  increase 


64  PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

for  Southern  whites  has  been  24.4  per  cent,  while  the  in 
crease  for  the  whole  country  has  been  only  22.3  per  cent. 
It  is  actually  true,  therefore,  that  the  South  is  becoming 
whiter. 

Movement  Cityward. 

Another  partial  explanation  of  the  relative  (not  actual) 
decrease  of  the  Negro  in  the  South  is  the  movement  city 
ward.  In  the  nine  cotton  States  of  the  South — Alabama, 
Arkansas,  Florida,  Georgia,  Louisiana,  Mississippi,  North 
Carolina,  South  Carolina  and  Tennessee  (unfortunately, 
the  figures  for  Texas  are  not  yet  available) — the  white 
population  in  cities  has  been  increasing  as  follows:  In  1890 
there  were  n.6  per  cent  living  in  city  areas;  in  1900,  14 
per  cent;  in  1910,  18.9  per  cent.  The  corresponding  figures 
for  negro  population  in  these  States  are:  1890,  n.8  per 
cent;  1900,  14.7  per  cent;  1910,  17.7  per  cent.  Thus  the 
city  population  of  the  whites  has  increased  in  proportion 
by  7.2  per  cent  and  that  of  the  Negroes  by  5.8  per  cent.  It 
will  thus  be  seen  that  both  the  white  and  the  colored  races 
are  moving  toward  the  city,  though  the  cityward  movement 
for  whites  -3  greater  than  that  for  Negroes. 

Now,  the  significant  fact  about  this  migration  as  it 
relates  to  the  Negro  lies  in  his  poorer  health  conditions  in 
the  city  as  compared  with  the  white  man.  So  long  as  he 
lives  in  the  country  he  at  least  has  good  ventilation  and 
usually  better  sanitation  than  he  has  in  the  city.  The  Negro 
has  practically  the  monoply  of  the  unsanitary  and  disease- 
breeding  sections  of  the  city,  while  most  of  the  whites  in 
the  South  live  under  more  favorable  conditions.  This 
shows  in  the  very  high  death  rate  of  the  city  Negro.  Among 
them  the  infant  mortality  is  almost  50  per  cent  in 
some  cities,  and  tuberculosis  and  venereal  troubles  take  off 
literally  thousands.  It  can  readily  be  seen  that  the  city  is 


NEGRO  POPULATION  AND  RACE  MOVEMENTS      65 

the  Negro's  enemy,  and  has  much  to  do  with  his  declining 
rate  of  increase  in  population. 

Death  Rate  of  Both  Races. 

As  stated  before,  there  are  no  whole  or  complete  sta 
tistics  on  the  death  rate  of  either  whites  or  blacks.  There 
are,  however,  certain  regions — mainly  cities — where  the 
local  authorities  attempt  to  keep  records  of  deaths.  This 
so-called  registration  area  included  13.4  per  cent  of  the 
Negroes  in  the  United  States  in  1900,  and,  being  almost 
entirely  urban,  cannot  be  considered  as  entirely  true  as  to 
the  facts  of  the  whole  race.  There  are  almost  no  records 
for  the  rural  population  where  the  great  mass  of  Negroes 
live.  The  following  table  shows  the  relative  death  rate 
of  the  two  races  in  these  registration  areas,  1900: 


RACE 

1900 

Population 

Number 
Deaths 

Death 
Rate 

Negro  

1,180,546 

35,710 

30.2 

White.. 

27  555  800 

474640 

173 

The  corresponding  figures  for  1890  are  29.9  for  Negroes 
and  19.1  for  whites.  This  figure  for  Negroes  includes  a 
few  Mongolians  and  Indians,  and  perhaps  the  death  rate 
should  not  be  for  Negroes  alone  more  than  29.  This  means 
that  for  every  thousand  Negroes  twenty-nine  die  annually. 
Unfortunately,  the  death  rates  for  1910  are  not  yet  avail 
able,  though  workers  in  the  Census  Bureau  estimate  the 
death  rate  will  be  less  than  28  for  Negroes.  So  far  as  any 
conclusion  can  be  drawn  from  these  figures,  it  is  seen  that 
the  negro  death  rate  is  almost  twice  as  high  as  that  for  the 
white.  It  must  always  be  remembered  that  these  figures 
apply  only  to  the  city  population  for  certain  sections,  and 


66 


PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 


hence  are  apt  to  be  much  higher  for  the  Negro  than  sucli 
figures  would  be  for  the  country  districts.  We  can  only  sur 
mise  that  the  death  rate  in  the  country  wouM  likely  be  larger 
for  Negroes  than  whites,  but  how  much  larger  we  can 
not  tell. 

Birth  Rate. 

Inasmuch  as  there  are  no  reliable  figures  for  births,  the 
best  substitute  is  to  find  the  number  of  children  under  five 
years  of  age  to  all  females  between  fifteen  and  forty-four 
years  of  age.  This  relative  number  of  children  to  women  of 
the  age  of  motherhood  will  help  to  indicate  the  relative 
fecundity  of  the  two  races.  The  following  table,  based  on 
the  last  three  census  periods  and  divided  as  to  sections  of 
the  country,  is  quite  illuminative: 


CENSUS   YEAR 

Number  of  children  under  five  years  of  age  to 
1,000  females  fifteen  to  forty-four  years  of  age. 

Continental 
U.S. 

South  Atlantic 
States 

South  Central 
States 

Negro 
Indian 
andMon- 
golian 
popula 
tion 

White 
Popu 
lation 

Negro 
Indian 
andMon- 
golian 
popula 
tion 

White 
Popu 
lation 

Negro 
Indian 
andMon- 
golian 
popula 
tion 

White 
Popu 
lation 

1880 

759 
616 
585 

586 
517 
508 

787 
638 
630 

666 

587 
595 

799 
659 
612 

749 
655 
659 

1890 

1900 

The  above  figures  include  all  non-Caucasians  among 
the  colored  population,  but  since  this  is  less  than  one  per 
cent  of  the  colored  population  in  the  South  Atlantic  and 
South  Central  divisions,  the  error  would  be  insignificant. 
It  will  be  noted  that  in  the  United  States  as  a  whole  the 


NEGRO  POPULATION  AND  RACE  MOVEMENTS       67 

number  of  children  for  both  races  has  declined  rapidly,  but 
much  more  rapidly  among  the  Negroes  than  among  the 
whites.  Thus  there  were  in  the  whole  country  one  hundred 
and  seventy-four  fewer  children  to  each  one  thousand 
women  among  Negroes  in  1900  than  there  were  in  1880,  and 
seventy-eight  fewer  among  the  whites.  It  will  be  seen 
from  this  that  the  decrease  is  more  than  twice  as  great 
among  the  former  as  among  the  latter.  In  the  South 
Atlantic  division  the  relative  decline  in  the  twenty  years 
has  been  one  hundred  and  fifty-seven  for  Negroes  and 
seventy-one  for  whites,  while  in  the  South  Central  division 
the  figures  are  one  hundred  and  eighty-seven  for  Negroes 
and  ninety  for  whites.  From  these  figures  it  will  be  seen 
that  the  birth  rate  of  the  Negro  is  declining  more  rapidly 
than  that  of  the  whites.  This  fact,  together  with  the  higher 
death  rate  of  Negroes,  indicates  that  the  relative  increase  of 
the  race  would  necessarily  be  smaller  than  that  of  the 
whites.  The  census  figures  for  population  prove  this  to 
be  true. 

Possible  Explanations. 

We  have  already  noted  two  facts  which  help  to  account 
for  the  larger  increase  of  whites  than  Negroes  in  the  South. 
First  is  the  fact  of  immigration  of  Northern  whites  to  the 
South  and  the  emigration  of  Negroes  out  of  the  South. 
The  second  fact  was  the  relative  health  conditions  of  the 
two  races  among  the  ever-increasing  population  in  cities. 
There  are  three  other  facts  which  ought  to  be  taken  into 
consideration  in  connection  with  these  statistics.  The  first 
relates  to  the  relative  medical  attention  and  physical  care 
taken  of  the  Negro  before  and  since  1860.  During  slavery 
days  the  health  of  the  Negro  was  watched  very  carefully, 
not  only  from  a  humanitarian  standpoint,  but  also  from  the 
economic  as  well. 

Whenever  a  Negro  became  ill  it  was  the  common  custom 


68     PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

for  the  mistress  of  the  home  to  go  personally  to  the  quar 
ters  and  see  that  proper  care  was  taken  of  the  patient.  Most 
of  the  plantation  owners  had  a  regular  physician  whom 
they  paid  for  practice  among  their  slaves.  In  this  way  the 
health  of  the  Negro  was  much  more  carefully  guarded  than 
at  the  present  time.  The  one  hopeful  feature  of  the  present 
is  in  the  larger  number  of  negro  physicians  who  will  neces 
sarily  practice  largely  among^  their  own  race.  The  white 
physicians  prefer  not  to  do  the  practice  among  colored 
people,  and  race  prejudice  has  often  prevented  the  white 
man  being  called  in.  The  consequence  has  been  the  poor 
est  medical  attention  conceivable  for  the  whole  people,  thou 
sands  dying  without  ever  seeing  a  doctor  at  all.  Neither 
has  there  been  any  hospital  facilities  to  take  the  place  of 
the  old  plantation  care.  The  following  statement  from  a 
Southern  city  will  indicate  the  condition : 

"Here  in  this  city  of  push,  pluck  and  Christian  progress, 
there  is  not  a  decent  hospital  where  colored  people  can  be 
cared  for.  At  the  Grady  Hospital,  which  takes  about 
$20,000  of  the  city's  money  annually  to  run  it,  is  a  small 
wooden  annex  down  by  the  kitchen,  in  which  may  be 
crowded  fifty  or  sixty  beds,  and  that  is  all  the  hospital 
advantages  40,000  colored  citizens  have.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  our  whites,  with  a  population  of  about  70,000,  have 
all  the  wards  and  private  rooms  in  the  entire  brick  building 
at  this  hospital,  together  with  a  very  fine  hospital  here 
known  as  St.  Joseph's  Infirmary."1 

With  the  increasing  number  of  medical  graduates  among 
Negroes  and  the  larger  interest  of  Southern  whites  in  the 
Negro,  this  condition  ought  to  be  somewhat  changed. 

Lack  of  Care  for  Children. 

Another  fact  which  helps  to  explain  the  high  death  rate 
and  consequent  smaller  increase  of  negro  population  lies 

laMortality  Among  Negroes  in  Cities,"  p.  17. 


NEGRO  POPULATION  AND  RACE  MOVEMENTS      69 

in  the  poor  care  taken  of  the  negro  children.  The  census 
figures  for  1900  show  that  62.2  per  cent  of  all  Negroes  over 
ten  years  of  age  are  breadwinners,  and  46.9  per  cent  of 
Southern  whites  of  the  same  age.  Among  women  40.7  per 
cent  among  Negroes  over  ten  years  of  age  and  n.8  per  cent 
of  Southern  whites  are  breadwinners.  Perhaps  fully  50 
per  cent  of  all  negro  women  of  motherhood  age  have  to 
work  for  a  living.  This  means  that  most  of  the  children 
have  no  adequate  care.  In  a  tour  of  investigation  in 
Columbia,  S.  C,  recently,  I  found  a  home  of  six  children 
where  the  mother  cooked  for  a  white  family.  She  had  a 
three-months-old  baby  and  had  been  away  from  it  continu 
ally  during  the  day  hours  since  the  child  was  one  week  old. 
She  simply  gave  it  a  sugar  bag  to  suck,  and,  locking  the 
door,  left  it  in  the  house  alone  all  day,  coming  home  once 
during  the  day  to  nurse  it.  The  other  children  were  away 
at  school  or  at  work.  It  would  be  nothing  less  than  a 
miracle  if  this  child  should  grow  into  a  healthy  youth,  and 
yet  this  condition  is  found  in  nearly  half  of  the  negro 
homes.  We  berate  the  negro  women  for  not  being  more 
willing  to  work  out,  and  when  they  do  we  accuse  them  of 
lack  of  love  for  their  children,  and  put  down  the  smaller 
birth  rate  and  the  higher  death  rate  as  a  matter  of  race 
weakness.  The  real  truth  is  that  the  infant  mortality  among 
city  Negroes  is  so  overwhelmingly  high  as  to  materially 
affect  the  entire  rate  of  population  increase.  If  we  want 
to  have  negro  women  to  do  the  work  in  our  homes,  com 
mon  humanity  and  decency  would  dictate  that  we  provide 
day  nurseries  to  guard  the  children  of  these  women  while 
they  cook  our  meals  and  nurse  our  own  children.  It  is 
also  a  well-known  fact  that  there  are  many  more  stillborn 
children  among  the  Negroes  than  among  the  whites.  This 
is  explained  partly  by  the  larger  exposure  of  the  negro 
working  women  and  partly  by  immorality  and  sexual  dis- 


70  PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

eases.    In  either  case  it  helps  to  lessen  the  rate  of  increase 
in  negro  population. 

Increase  in  Special  Diseases. 

In  a  former  volume  I  have  gone  somewhat  into  detail 
concerning  the  increased  prevalence  of  consumption,  scrof 
ula,  syphilis,  etc.  I  do  not  need  to  repeat  these  statistics 
here.  Without  wearying  the  reader  with  figures,  one  can 
simply  summarize  conclusions  as  to  causes  in  so  far  as  the 
facts  make  these  causes  clear.  First,  much  of  the  consump 
tion  is  due  to  exposure,  poor  sanitation,  type  of  labor  done, 
such  as  laundering  clothes  for  sick  people,  and  also  due  to 
a  large  debilitation  on  the  part  of  the  Negro  on  account  of 
sexual  immorality.  This  weakness  on  the  part  of  the 
parents  gives  the  child  much  less  resisting  power  to  fight 
the  inroads  of  this  disease.  Second,  this  increased  im 
morality  would  naturally  come  along  with  the  first  half 
century  of  freedom.  To  almost  every  ignorant  people  free 
dom  means  license,  and  this  is  not  always  confined  to  the 
ignorant  people.  Also  the  great  preponderance  of  women 
among  the  colored  population  of  the  cities  (118  women  to 
loo  men  in  fifteen  of  the  cities  of  largest  negro  population) 
exposes  the  women  of  a  weak  and  untrained  race  to  greater 
temptations  than  they  could  be  expected  to  overcome.  Still 
further,  the  economic  pressure  and  the  high  cost  of  living 
have  delayed  marriage  by  a  number  of  months  for  the 
whole  race  in  the  last  twenty  years,  thus  opening  a  new 
avenue  of  immorality.  All  these  facts  will  help  to  indicate 
why  these  specific  diseases  have  increased  since  1860  among 
Negroes.  With  a  larger  moral  training  which  they  are  now 
getting  in  the  schools,  with  better  hygienic  and  sanitary 
knowledge  which  the  school  children  are  acquiring,  and 
with  a  more  genuine  interest  and  helpfulness  on  the  part 
of  whites,  these  conditions  ought  to  show  a  change  for  the 
better  in  the  next  decade. 


NEGRO  POPULATION  AND  RACE  MOVEMENTS       71 

Negro  Conditions  an  American  Problem. 

The  foregoing  brief  summary  of  vital  statistics,  to 
gether  with  the  succeeding  maps  showing  the  present  race 
distribution,  lead  me  to  a  number  of  very  definite  conclu 
sions.  The  first  is  that  the  condition  of  the  Negro,  while 
preponderantly  a  Southern  question,  is  also  fast  becoming 
a  national  question. 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  above  that  there  is  a  steady 
flow  from  the  South  to  the  North,  and  if  the  South  Atlantic 
States  did  not  include  Maryland  and  Delaware  the  num 
bers  would  be  increased  by  some  seven  thousand,  and  a 
similar  decrease  in  the  total  in  the  South  for  1910.  A 
careful  study  of  the  facts  in  the  South  indicates  also  that 
the  Negroes  are  becoming  more  widely  spread  and  some 
what  more  evenly  divided.  Only  a  few  counties  go  con 
trary  to  this  rule.  It  is,  therefore,  evident  that  every  Amer 
ican  citizen  must  become  more  and  more  interested  in  the 
uplift  of  this  race. 

NUMBER  OF  NEGROES  LIVING  IN  STATES  OUTSIDE  THE  SOUTH 


Negro  Population 

1900 

1910 

For  Continental  U.  S. 

8,833,994 

9,828  294 

For  South  Atlantic  and  South  Central 

7,922,969 

8,247,390 

For  States  Outside  the  South 

911,025 

1,078,804 

The  Negro  a  Factor  in  the  Future. 

While  all  the  facts  go  to  show  that  the  Negro  is  in 
creasing  less  rapidly  than  the  white  man,  nevertheless  even 
the  most  conservative  estimates  indicate  that  for  more  than 
a  century  to  come  he  will  be  a  very  large  factor  in  South 
ern  life.  We  and  our  children  and  our  children's  children 
will  still  have  the  problem  of  a  proper  race  relationship 
between  two  peoples  comparatively  equal  in  numbers.  It 
is  pure  weakness  that  prompts  us  to  spend  time  theorizing 


73  PRESENT.  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

about  the  possibility  of  race  extinction.  This  is  not  likely 
to  ever  come,  but  if  it  should  ever  come  it  will  be  many 
generations  removed.  Instead  of  speculating  about  that 
probable  hour,  and  wishing  that  hour  to  speedily  arrive, 
it  would  be  far  more  statesmanlike  and  more  human  and 
more  Christian  if  we  would  begin  to  do  something  to  uplift 
those  who  are  with  us  now.  The  man  who  theorizes  about 
race  extinction  is  nine  times  out  of  ten  doing  nothing  for 
race  elevation.  What  we  need  today  is  not  more  theorists, 
but  more  workers — more  men  and  women  who  are  willing 
to  do  their  duty  by  the  people  of  our  own  day,  and  leave 
the  future  to  God  and  the  workings  of  the  laws  of  nature. 

Country  Conditions  Most  Favorable  to  the  Negro. 

Our  study  further  convinces  us  that  the  conditions  of 
rural  life  are  much  more  conducive  to  the  welfare,  both 
physical  and  moral,  of  the  Negro  than  the  city.  For  the 
present,  at  least,  he  is  not  economically  fitted  in  large  num 
bers  to  be  a  city  dweller.  Not  only  so,  but  his  impulsive 
nature  unfits  him  to  meet  the  excitement  and  strain  of 
city  life.  The  one  wholesome  and  safe  place  for  the  mass 
of  Negroes  is  in  the  country  and  on  the  farms.  It  is  to  be 
noted  that  the  negro  farmer  is  increasing  somewhat  faster 
than  the  white  farmer  in  the  South.  This  is  not  only  to 
the  advantage  of  the  Negro,  but  to  the  economic  advantage 
of  the  whole  section.  The  South  is  an  agricultural  section, 
and  we  must  induce  the  Negro  to  have  his  share  in  the  agri 
cultural  life  of  the  section  if  we  are  to  prosper.  Some  of 
the  things  necessary  to  keep  the  Negro  in  the  country  will 
be  discussed  in  a  later  chapter.  Here  we  want  to  call  atten 
tion  alone  to  the  fact  that  vital  statistics  point  to  the  coun 
try  as  the  hope  of  the  Negro  population. 

Self  Interest  and  Negro  Population. 

The  greatest  economic  need  of  the  present  South  is  an 


NEGRO  POPULATION  AND  RACE  MOVEMENTS       73 

intelligent  and  able-bodied  laboring  class.  We  have  the 
wealth  of  soil,  the  abundance  of  timber,  and  mineral  re 
sources  beyond  reasonable  measure.  These  cannot  be 
developed  without  efficient  labor,  and  lack  of  this  more 
than  anything  else  is  the  cause  of  our  backwardness  at  the 
present  time.  No  one  can  go  to  a  cotton  plantation  today 
and  not  hear  the  cry  of  scarcity  of  labor — because  we 
neither  have  sufficient  supply  nor  is  that  supply  properly 
trained.  The  normal,  healthy  growth  of  the  negro  popula 
tion  is,  therefore,  a  thing  devoutly  to  be  wished.  We  can 
not  prosper  without  his  services,  for,  as  I  have  pointed  out 
elsewhere,  we  cannot  hope  for  a  very  large  inflow  of  labor 
from  the  foreign  element  in  the  near  future.  Conditions  in 
the  South  do  not  appeal  to  the  foreigner  and  he  prefers 
to  settle  in  the  North  and  West.  If,  therefore,  we  allow 
careless  sanitation  in  our  cities,  thereby  increasing  the 
death  rate  among  the  negro,  we  do  it  at  our  own  economic 
peril.  Whether  we  care  for  the  man  or  no,  we  must,  as  a 
section,  care  for  the  fruit  of  his  labor.  A  laboring  man 
today  is  more  valuable  than  he  was  during  slavery.  A  good 
hand  could  then  be  hired  for  one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars 
per  year  and  his  board.  He  certainly  produces  more  than 
that  now,  and  every  child  which  fails  to  grow  into  strong 
manhood  simply  because  of  our  neglect  is  robbing  the 
South  of  that  much  productive  energy. 

Our  Responsibility. 

Furthermore,  if  the  negro  race  is  dying  rapidly,  the 
white  man  is  responsible.  I  mean  in  the  country  we  give 
him  so  little  training  in  the  laws  of  hygiene  that  he  does 
not  know  the  art  of  self-preservation.  I  mean  that  we 
allow  city  landlords  to  build  abominable  huts  in  which  the 
Negro  has  to  live.  We  allow  the  streets  in  the  section  where 
he  lives — even  though  within  the  city  limits — to  go  without 
drainage,  sewerage,  paving,  or  even  garbage  service.  We 


74     PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

allow  practices  which  no  self-respecting  community  ought 
to  allow,  and  all  these  things  result  in  indifference,  im 
morality,  physical  inability  and  death  for  the  Negro — and  we 
are  his  murderers.  A  city  council  which  allows  any  land 
owner  to  do  what  I  saw  done  in  one  Southern  city  recently — • 
build  a  long  row  of  shabby  houses  inside  the  corporate 
limits,  in  a  marsh,  without  drainage  or  sewerage,  putting 
the  houses  up  on  posts  to  keep  them  out  of  the  water,  and 
rent  those  houses  at  40  per  cent  interest  on  his  invest 
ment — any  city  council  that  will  allow  this  is  either  a  set 
of  civic  imbeciles  or  a  set  of  civic  knaves.  Nay,  more,  they 
are  a  set  of  civic  murderers.  The  fact  that  these  men  go 
to  church  on  Sunday  and  subscribe  to  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  on 
Monday,  and  make  a  civic  righteousness  speech  on  Tuesday, 
and  lead  the  parade  for  the  "City  Ad"  Club  on  Wednesday, 
and  so  on  through  the  week,  does  not  make  them  any  less 
criminal.  The  truth  is  that  in  our  day  the  criminal  most  to 
be  feared  is  not  the  red-handed  murderer  or  the  pad-footed 
robber,  but  the  men  who,  clothed  in  all  their  high  respect 
ability,  sit  in  their  fine  offices  and  smile,  while  poor  devils 
all  around  them  are  dying  for  want  of  protection  from  the 
greed  of  the  money  shark,  the  lust  of  the  landlord,  and  the 
chicanery  of  the  cheap  politician.  The  weeping  of  this 
people  ascendeth  to  high  heaven,  and  we  raise  not  our  hand 
to  stay  the  cause  of  their  lamentation.  Men  of  the  South, 
we  who  glory  in  the  passing  of  the  Negro  are  glorying  be 
cause  of  the  red-handed  murder  done  by  our  own  race,  and 
the  blood  of  the  sufferers  will  be  on  our  heads.  , 

Law  of  Retribution. 

And  already  that  blood  is  on  our  heads.  Already  the 
law  of  retribution  has  begun  to  strike  back,  and  whenever 
a  black  boy  dies  of  tuberculosis  he  leaves  behind  him  a 
train  of  suffering  white  boys  who  have  contracted  his  dis 
ease.  Wherever  a  poor,  degraded  negro  girl  passes  on 


NEGRO  POPULATION  AND  RACE  MOVEMENTS      75 

because  of  her  crimes  of  life,  she  leaves  some  white  mother 
and  some  white  child  suffering  the  pangs  of  an  ever-present 
death  because  she  has  dragged  with  her  some  white  man 
to  the  very  jaws  of  hell.  If  the  figures  I  have  given  spell 
anything,  they  spell  responsibility.  Instead  of  glorying, 
as  some,  in  what  seems  to  be  the  decay  of  the  negro  race, 
self-interest,  self-instinct,  self-preservation,  humanity, 
Christianity — all  unite  in  demanding  that  we  stay  this  tide 
of  death.  The  negro  race,  as  we  saw  in  our  first  chapter, 
is  essentially  a  prolific  race.  His  nature  has  not  and  could 
not  completely  change  in  a  brief  period  of  two  or  three 
centuries.  If  he  has  become  or  is  becoming  a  waning  race, 
it  is  not  because  of  inherent  racial  disability,  but  because 
his  environment  has  been  unfavorable.  And  it  should  be 
noted  that  this  environment  may  be  changed.  There  is  not 
a  cause  working  for  the  more  rapid  decrease  of  the  negro 
population  which  is  not  curable.  If  we  shall  give  them 
more  decent  homes  to  live  in  and  more  decent  surround 
ings,  impurity  will  be  less  prevalent  and  infant  mortality 
reduced.  If  we  shall  see  to  it  that  they  have  better  sanita 
tion  and  better  training  in  the  laws  of  hygiene,  there  will 
be  less  of  tuberculosis,  fevers  and  death.  If  we  shall  en 
courage  them  to  have  better  homes  and  help  them  to  have 
a  larger  share  in  the  returns  of  labor,  if  we  shall  cease  to 
exploit  them  for  our  own  selfish  pleasure,  they  will  begin 
to  have  more  hope,  more  courage,  and  hence  a  better  chance 
for  a  long  and  useful  life.  I  cannot  but  believe  that  the 
bare  physical  life  of  the  Negro  is  largely  in  the  hands  of  the 
white  man.  We  must  be  true  to  that  trust. 


PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 


ADDENDA 

I  am  greatly  indebted  to  the  Negro  Bulletin  No.  8 
(1904),  which  anyone  can  secure  from  the  Census  Bureau, 
for  many  of  the  facts  contained  in  this  chapter.  All  the 
facts  available  at  this  date  from  the  1910  census  have  been 
incorporated,  and  sufficient  facts  are  at  hand  to  indicate 
clearly  the  trend  of  present  conditions.  I  am  indebted  to 
Dr.  Thomas  Jesse  Jones,  of  the  Census  Bureau,  for  getting 
into  my  hands  at  a  very  early  date  the  preliminary  census 
returns  (1910)  which  make  possible  the  maps  following 
and  the  general  statement  of  facts  concerning  the  popula 
tion.  There  may  be  some  slight  changes  later  in  the  census 
returns,  but  they  will  be  so  slight  as  not  to  affect  the  value 
of  this  work. 

In  order  that  one  may  know  at  a  glance  the  distribution 
of  negro  population,  the  maps  following  leave  all  counties 
white  where  the  whites  have  increased  more  rapidly  than 
the  blacks  during  the  decade  from  1900  to  1910.  When  the 
blacks  have  increased  parallel  with  or  faster  than  the  whites, 
the  counties  have  been  barred.  In  every  case  the  percent 
age  of  increase  for  each  is  given.  The  top  figure  refers 
to  the  whites;  the  bottom  figures  to  the  blacks.  A  minus 
sign  before  a  figure  indicates  a  decrease.  Thus  a  county 
marked  (cut  in)  would  mean  the  whites  had  increased  four 
per  cent  and  the  Negroes  had  decreased  two  per  cent  be 
tween  1900  and  1910.  Where  a  single  figure  is  given  in 
a  county,  it  means  both  races  have  increased  or  decreased 
at  the  same  rate,  or  at  least  so  nearly  the  same  rate  as  to 
make  no  appreciable  difference.  It  is  hoped  that  these 

maps  may  show  at  a  glance  the  general  migrations  of 
Negroes  in  the  former  slave-holding  States,  and  hence  no 
extended  comments  have  been  made.  The  appended  figures 
will  give  more  detailed  information  for  each  State. 


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82  PRE'SSftT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 


NEGRO  POPULATION  AND  RACE*  MOVEMENTS   ,,83 


PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 


NEGRO  POPULATION  AND  RACE' MOVEMENTS.      85 


86  PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 


NEGRO  POPULATION  AND  RAC£\tivitEMENT$t':  \-87 


F  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 


NEGRO  POPULATION  AND  RACE  MOVEMENTS      89 


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90  PRESENT,  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  NEW  TYPE  OF  NEGRO  FARMER 


A  CORN  SONG 

O'er  the  fields  with  heavy  tread, 
Light  of  heart  and  high  of  head, 
Though  the  halting  steps  be  labored,  slow,  and  weary; 
Still  the  spirits  brave  and  strong 
Find  a  comforter  in  song, 

And  their  corn-song  rises  ever  loud  and  cheery. 
Oh,  we  hoe  de  co'n 
Since  dc  ehly  mo'n; 
Now  de  sinkin'  sun 
Says  de  day  is  done. 

— Paul  Laurence  Dunbar. 
(92) 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  NEW  TYPE  OF  NEGRO  FARMER 

There  is  a  glory  about  the  old  Southern  life  which  holds 
one  like  an  enchantment.  Here  and  there,  as  one  travels 
over  this  section,  one  still  stumbles  upon  these  old  planta 
tions,  the  ruins  of  which  yet  stand,  publishing  to  the  world 
the  glories  of  a  past,  but  not  a  forgotten  age.  Here  will 
be  seen  a  long  line  of  cedars  or  elms  or  maples,  flanking  a 
winding  roadway  that  leads  back  to  some  secluded  spot 
where  stood  the  manor  of  a  Southern  gentleman.  These  old 
trees,  standing  as  lonely  but  faithful  sentinels  guarding  the 
remains  of  a  past  glory,  seem  to  have  about  them  some  of 
the  former  dignity  and  pride  of  bearing  which  characterized 
those  who  drove  beneath  their  shades.  But  with  all  their 
dignity  there  lingers  about  them  an  inviting  atmosphere  and 
a  comfortable  leisure  which  reminds  one  of  the  genial  hos 
pitality  of  the  typical  Southern  home  of  half  a  century  ago. 

If  one  has  chanced  upon  one  of  the  best  preserved  of 
these  old  places,  there  can  still  be  seen  standing  the  neigh 
borly  little  houses  of  the  slave  quarters,  all  huddled  together 
in  that  friendly  familiarity  which  characterizes  the  people 
sprung  from  their  simple  hearths.  Here  and  there  smoke 
will  be  rising  from  the  dilapidated  chimney  of  one  of  the 
rickety  huts,  and  if  one  lingers  long  enough  a  frosty-haired 
old  Negro  will  put  his  head  out  at  the  door  and  give  you 
one  of  those  cordial  and  kindly  greetings  which  transports 
you  into  another  time. 

Here  are  the  stables,  now  decaying  and  empty,  in  which 
the  prancing  steeds  were  fondled  and  petted  by  that  proud 
coachman  whose  face  shone  as  brightly  as  his  carriage,  and 

(93) 


94  PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGttO  PROGRESS 

whose  head  was  held  no  less  proudly  than  that  of  the  dash 
ing  team.  All  about  you  there  are  signs  of  a  former  pros 
perity,  and  a  rich  glory  which  no  Southern  man  can  ever 
forget,  and  which  no  true  Southerner  would  want  to  forget. 
I  frankly  confess,  call  it  sentiment  if  you  will,  that  I  never 
visit  one  of  these  Southern  plantations,  where  peace  and 
chivalry  were  wont  to  dwell,  that  the  blood  in  my  veins  does 
not  leap  faster,  and  there  is  not  an  almost  irresistible  im 
pulse  to  go  with  uncovered  head  and  to  say  to  those  about 
me,  'Take  off  thy  shoes,  for  the  ground  where  on  thou 
standest  is  sacred  ground." 

But  with  all  the  glory  of  its  past,  the  regime  of  slave 
farming  was  a  failure.  It  was  built  upon  the  false  prin 
ciple  of  great  landed  estates  on  which  the  few  had  luxury 
and  the  mass  had  only  a  living.  The  conditions  of  slave 
labor  drove  the  South  deeper  and  deeper  into  that  profligate 
method  of  farming  which  plants  only  one  crop  and  con 
tinues  to  mine  and  dig  until  all  the  strength  of  the  land  has 
been  extracted,  and  then,  like  a  tired  man,  the  land,  ex 
hausted  and  lean,  must  lie  and  rest  for  a  century  before 
nature  can  so  far  resuscitate  it  as  to  make  it  able  to  take 
up  the  burden  of  crop-raising  again. 

The  following  excerpt  taken  from  the  report  of  the 
Wateree  Agricultural  Society,  of  South  Carolina,  1843,  while 
declaiming  for  better  farming  methods,  clearly  indicates 
the  process  of  land  destruction  during  slavery. 

"For  many  years,  while  our  chief  marketable  product, 
cotton,  bore  a  high  price,  many  of  us  were  in  the  habit  of 
raising  that  almost  exclusively,  and  depending  upon  sup 
plies  of  bread  and  meat  from  abroad,  which  the  cotton  crop 
had  to  pay  for — as  well  as  for  the  animal  power  necessary 
on  the  plantation;  a  most  pernicious  practice,  which  has 
impoverished  the  State  by  millions,  and  been  the  ruin  of 
many  planters.  It  is  believed  that  stern  necessity  has  forced 
the  planter  to  abandon  this  system  measurably.  It  is  un- 


THE  NEW  TYPE  OF  NEGRO  FARMER  95 

usual  for  any  one  in  this  neighborhood  to  purchase  either 
bread  or  meat,  and  we  are  rapidly  becoming  raisers  of  our 
own  animal  power  on  the  plantations. 

"It  is  believed  that  we  are  as  successful  as  any  body  of 
planters  in  the  State,  on  the  same  character  of  lands,  in  the 
mode  of  our  culture.  Certainly  we  have  pressed  too  far  the 
old,  and  seemingly  well-established  doctrine,  to  wear  out 
the  land  by  cropping  without  manure,  and  then  open  new 
lands.  But  this  system  is  also  giving  way  to  the  sober 
light  of  experience;  which  teaches,  that  one  acre  well  ma 
nured  and  taken  care  of,  will  produce  more  in  the  average 
of  years,  than  two  acres  even  of  fresh  land,  not  manured." 5 

In  letters  from  John  B.  Lamar  to  Mrs.  Howell  Cobb,  his 
sister,  and  Mr.  Howell  Cobb,  whose  plantations,  in  Georgia, 
he  managed,  I  take  extracts  showing  the  same  conditions 
of  worn-out  land. 

".  .  .  Lord,  Lord  Howell,  you  and  I  have  been  too 
used  to  poor  land  to  know  what  crops  people  are  making 
in  the  rich  lands  of  the  new  counties.  I  am  just  getting  my 
eyes  opened  to  the  golden  view.  On  those  good  lands,  when 
cotton  is  down  to  such  a  price  as  would  starve  us  out,  they 
can  make  money.  .  .  .  You  have  a  large  and  effective 
force  of  hands,  more  effective  than  any  of  the  same  number 
I  know  of  in  the  States.  But  they  cultivate  a  large  propor 
tion  of  poor  land,  and  there  is  not  enough  of  even  poor  land 
in  Baldwin  for  them  to  be  properly  employed.  ...  I 
have  been  asleep  to  my  interests  for  ten  years.  I  have 
just  woke  up  from  a  Rip  Van  Winkle  nap  and  found  every 
body  around  me  advancing  and  I  just  holding  my  own  on 
poor  lands  that  were  (most  of  them)  exhausted  before  I 
ever  saw  them."2 

It  was  inevitable  that  the  old  method  of  big  farms,  slave 

1Quoted  from  Documentary  History  of  American  Industrial  So 
ciety,  pp.  290,  291. 

•/wa,  pp.  177, 178, 179. 


96  PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

hands  and  paid  overseers  should  have  just  this  result.  Every 
overseer  wanted  to  make  the  largest  possible  show  for  the 
year  at  the  least  possible  expense,  and  the  result  was  that 
everything  was  taken  off  the  land  and  nothing  put  back. 
The  wonder  is  that  more  lands  were  not  destroyed  than 
were. 

Amount  Cultivated. 

Mr.  John  Lee  Coulter,  of  the  Department  of  Commerce 
and  Labor,  has  prepared  a  statement  concerning  farm  life 
in  the  Southern  States  east  of  the  Mississippi  River,  a  copy 
of  which  manuscript  he  has  been  kind  enough  to  put  into 
my  hands.  According  to  his  estimate  there  were  farms  in 
these  States  aggregating  161,607,000  acres  in  1860,  and  these 
farms  contained  on  an  average  321  acres.  The  number  of 
farms  was  504,000,  and  the  land,  building  improvement  and 
machinery  were  all  valued  at  $2,048,000,000.  The  imme 
diate  effect  of  the  war  was  to  throw  much  of  this  land  out 
of  cultivation  because  of  lack  of  labor  and  lack  of  capital, 
and  reduce  farm  values  to  half  the  former  amount.  In 
1870  the  total  farm  values  listed  were  $1,137,000,000,  in 
1880  it  was  $1,486,000,000,  in  1890  it  was  $1,875,000,000, 
and  not  till  1900  did  it  stand  at  $2,135,000,000,  just  4  per 
cent  more  than  it  was  reported  in  1860.  These  figures  tell 
a  long  story  of  painful  toil  and  slow,  patient  recovery.  None 
who  failed  to  see  the  two  types  of  life  can  ever  know  quite 
what  the  war  really  cost  the  South.  While  the  remainder  of 
the  country  was  forging  ahead,  forty  years  were  consumed 
in  the  South  getting  back  to  where  we  were  in  1860.  It  is 
with  gladness  and  hope  that  we  report  a  growth  of  102 
per  cent  in  farm  values  from  1900  to  1910,  the  figures  now 
standing  at  $4,318,000,000. 

Smaller  Farms. 

The  amount  of  land  in  farms  in  these  Southeastern 


THE  NEW  TYPE  OF  NEGRO  FARMER       97 

States  in  1910  (163,000,000  acres)  is  only  a  comparatively 
few  acres  more  than  in  1860,  and  yet  there  are  four  times 
as  many  farms  now  as  then,  making  the  average  size  of  a 
farm  today  only  84  acres,  about  half  of  which  is  in  culti 
vation,  the  other  half  being  in  woods  lot,  pasture,  etc. 
This  marks  a  long  step  in  the  progress  of  the  South,  for  it 
means  more  independent  farmers  and  better  cultivated 
farms.  The  number  of  white  farmers  in  the  United  States 
in  1910  was  5,422,892,  an  increase  of  9.1  per  cent  over  the 
previous  decade,  while  the  number  of  colored  farms  was 
917,465,  or  an  increase  of  19.5  per  cent.  Thus  it  seems 
the  Negro  has  a  greater  disposition  to  stay  on  the  farm  than 
has  the  white  man. 

Enemies  of  Southern  Farm  Life. 

The  three  arch  enemies  of  Southern  farm  life  today  are 
the  tenant  system,  which  appears  under  various  guises;  the 
one  crop  system,  which  continues  to  do  what  it  did  during 
slavery — eat  up  the  land  and  leave  it  worthless;  and  lastly, 
that  form  of  isolation  which  cheats  the  rural  dweller  out 
of  his  birthright  of  culture,  growth  and  enjoyment.  All  of 
those  evils  bear  more  heavily  on  the  average  Negro  than  on 
the  white  man  in  the  country. 

The  Tenant  System. 

Before  the  war  the  large  farms  in  the  South  were 
worked  by  gangs  of  slaves  usually  under  the  eye  of  an 
overseer,  while  the  smaller  farms  in  the  North  were  worked 
by  hired  labor.  After  the  war  the  old  plantation  owner 
began  to  divide  his  farm  up  into  smaller  plots  and  rent  each 
plot  to  a  family  for  cultivation.  He  had  no  other  recourse, 
for  he  did  not  have  enough  surplus  cash  to  hire  labor  to  do 
the  work,  and  besides,  hired  labor  was  very  unreliable  and 
scarcely  to  be  had.  Many  of  the  old  slaves  stayed  on  the 
plantation  and  the  owner  aide^.  them  *r>  the  best  of  his 


98  PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

ability  by  standing  for  their  credit  at  the  store  where  they 
got  provisions  and  seed  to  carry  them  until  the  crop  could 
be  made.  In  this  way  there  gradually  grew  up  in  the  South 
a  tenant  system.  The  terms  of  tenantry  are  of  three  kinds : 
First,  a  cash  tenant  or  renter ;  second,  one  who  pays  a  fixed 
amount  of  produce;  and  third,  the  sharer  or  cropper  who 
pays  one-half  or  one-fourth  of  what  he  makes  in  accord 
ance  with  whether  or  not  the  landlord  furnishes  stock  and 
seed,  or  whether  these  are  furnished  by  the  cropper.  The 
grades  of  a  negro  farmer,  therefore,  are  considered  to  stand 
in  the  following  order:  (i)  Owner,  (2)  cash  renter,  (3) 
fourth  cropper,  (4)  half  cropper.  Many  of  the  Negroes 
begin  at  No.  4  and  go  toward  No.  I  as  rapidly  as  possible. 
The  number  of  farms  worked  by  tenants  throughout  the 
United  States  in  1910  was  2,349,254,  or  37.1  per  cent  of  all 
farms,  an  increase  of  2  per  cent  over  1900.  In  Mississippi 
66  per  cent  of  the  farms  are  worked  by  tenants,  likewise 
nearly  66  per  cent  in  Georgia,  63  per  cent  in  South  Caro 
lina,  60  per  cent  in  Alabama,  40  per  cent  in  North  Carolina 
and  Tennessee,  in  Kentucky  24  per  cent  and  in  Virginia 
27  per  cent.  It  will  be  noted  that  those  States — Mississippi, 
Georgia  and  South  Carolina — where  the  negro  population 
is  very  large  are  the  States  where  the  tenantry  system  is 
most  prevalent.  Therefore,  it  is  seen  at  once  that  the  Negro 
is  the  greatest  sufferer  from  this  type  of  farming.  This 
problem  demands  careful  thought. 

More  Produce  Raised  Under  the  Tenant  System. 

The  old  tenant  system  has  been  defended  times  without 
number  by  farmers  who  claim  that  a  Negro,  and  even  the 
renting  whites,  can  raise  more  than  they  would  if  they 
owned  the  land  and  were  free  to  cultivate  it  as  they  pleased. 
This  argument  is  made  on  the  assumption,  true  indeed  at 
present,  that  the  mass  of  these  farmers  have  not  sufficient 
knowledge  or  persistence  to  make  a  good  crop  without  care- 


THE  NEW  TYPE  OF  NEGRO  FARMER  99 

ful  supervision.  In  the  tenant  system  the  landlord  not  only 
stipulates  what  shall  be  planted,  when  and  where  it  shall  be 
planted,  but  he  usually  keeps  an  eye  on  the  growing  crop 
and  sees  to  it  that  the  tenant  keeps  it  worked  and  gathers 
it  properly.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  does  help 
to  increase  the  yield  with  all  the  less  experienced  and  less 
ambitious  farmers.  But  it  is  not  alone  what  a  man  makes 
that  benefits  him,  it  is  what  he  lays  away  or  wisely  spends. 
In  the  figures  gathered  by  the  1910  census  it  has  come  out 
quite  clearly  that  while  a  share  tenant  actually  produces 
more  on  the  average  than  a  cash  tenant  or  an  owner,  yet  the 
cash  tenant  saves  more  and  has  more  to  show  for  his  labor 
than  the  cropper,  and  the  owner  has  more  to  show  than  the 
cash  tenant.  From  the  standpoint,  therefore,  of  the  farmer 
we  must,  of  necessity,  favor  the  small  farm  ownership 
among  Negroes  as  well  as  whites.  We  can  only  hope  that 
more  careful  training  and  continued  responsibility  will  ena 
ble  them  to  raise  as  much  as  they  would  under  white  super 
vision. 

One-Crop  System  and  Tenantry. 

It  ought  also  to  be  mentioned  that  where  the  one  crop 
system  prevails,  that  is,  where  only  cotton,  tobacco  or  sugar 
cane  is  raised,  the  farms  tend  to  increase  in  size  and  all  the 
land  tends  to  be  cultivated  by  the  cropper.  Thus  in  the 
Mississippi  and  Brazos  River  bottoms,  one  can  easily  see 
thousands  of  acres  cultivated  under  one  management,  every 
Negro  having  a  little  plot  which  he  farms,  paying  one- fourth 
of  his  produce  for  the  use  of  the  land.  I  drove  one  day  in 
the  Brazos  bottom  through  plantations  measuring  1,900 
acres,  2,400  acres,  2,900  acres,  5,000  acres  and  10,000  acres, 
respectively,  and  in  all  my  drive  saw  only  one  plot  of  land 
that  belonged  to  a  Negro.  On  all  these  plantations  cotton 
alone  was  raised,  with  just  enough  corn  to  feed  the  mules 
and  horses,  often  not  that  much. 


ioo          PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

Here  the  tenant  starts  the  year  in  debt,  so  he  must  go 
to  the  landlord's  store  and  get  provisions  and  supplies  on 
credit.  Usually  he  is  allowed  ten  to  twelve  dollars  per 
month  for  supplies,  and  a  little  money  to  buy  whisky  on 
Saturday.  When  the  crop  is  gathered  in  the  fall  there  is 
comparatively  little  left  after  the  bill  at  the  store  has  been 
paid.  In  many  cases  the  Negro  is  charged  two  prices  for  his 
supplies,  and  if  it  looks  as  though  the  crop  would  be  extra 
good,  he  is  encouraged  to  spend  more  liberally.  Not  a  few 
planters  keep  the  Negro  perpetually  in  debt  in  order  that  it 
may  be  impossible  for  him  to  move  off  the  place  at  the 
close  of  the  year. 

Tenantry  and  Whiskey. 

One  of  the  paradoxes  I  have  met  in  traveling  through 
these  tenant-farming  districts  is  the  attitude  of  the  manager 
toward  whiskey  and  the  Negro.  If  you  sit  down  to  discuss 
with  him  the  economic  efficiency  of  the  Negro,  he  will  usual 
ly  swear  at  him,  call  him  worthless,  unambitious,  shiftless 
and  almost  anything  vile.  He  never  fails  to  tell  you  that 
the  Negro  will  not  work  Saturday,  for  that  is  his  day  for 
drinking  and  gambling,  which  carousal  lasts  into  Sunday, 
and  then  most  of  Monday  must  be  used  in  "sobering  up."  I 
had  one  planter  tell  me  in  hard  earnest  he  could  not  get 
more  than  three  and  a  half  to  four  days'  work  out  of  his 
tenants — Tuesday  morning  until  Friday  noon  or  Friday 
night  at  most.  The  other  three  days  he  said  were  used  in 
drinking,  gambling,  carousing  and  getting  sober.  When  I 
asked  him  where  they  got  the  whiskey,  he  said  at  the  plan 
tation  store.  On  my  asking  why  he  did  not  quit  selling 
whiskey,  he  replied  he  did  not  dare,  for  the  Negroes  would 
go  to  the  next  plantation  and  not  only  buy  their  whiskey, 
but  spend  all  their  surplus  cash.  Then  I  asked  why  all  the 
planters  did  not  combine  and  agree  to  put  out  whiskey,  and 
his  reply  was  that  the  Negroes  would  leave  the  country.  But 


THE  NEW  TYPE  OF  NEGRO  F/lPMER  101 

they  had  never  tried  it,  and  those  counties  that  have  tried 
it  have  lost  absolutely  nothing  but  the  worthless  class,  those 
whom  everybody  could  well  spare. 

No,  this  was  not  the  secret.  When  I  went  over  to  the 
store  I  found  the  real  secret.  The  keeper  told  me  whiskey 
was  his  big  trade,  and  the  store  looked  it.  There  were  forty 
big  empty  whiskey  barrels  sitting  out  on  the  front  platform 
at  that  minute.  I  got  a  picture  of  those  barrels,  though 
the  keeper  thought  I  was  taking  a  picture  of  his  store  front. 
He  told  me  he  sold  from  six  to  twelve  carloads  of  whiskey 
per  year,  and  it  was  cheap  whiskey,  not  cheap  to  the  Negro, 
but  cheap  to  the  store  man.  The  real  reason  the  whiskey 
stays  there  is,  that  the  average  planter  of  this  type  prefers 
to  get,  as  rent,  one-fourth  of  what  a  Negro  can  make  work 
ing  four  days  in  the  week;  and  then  get  for  whiskey  nine- 
tenths  of  the  remaining  three-fourths.  At  the  end  of  the 
year  the  poor  Negro  has  drunk  up  all  his  surplus  and  cannot 
possibly  pay  out,  so  he  must  stick  to  the  land. 

Exceptional  Landlords. 

Of  course  there  are  notable  exceptions.  I  have  seen 
many  good  planters  who  honestly  did  their  best  to  help  the 
tenants  save  and  prosper.  I  visited  such  a  place  owned 
and  operated  by  Mr.  R.  K.  Boney  in  the  Mississippi  bottom. 
He  has  seventy-five  families  on  his  place.  The  houses  are 
all  in  good  repair.  Every  family  has  space  for  a  garden, 
a  yard,  pigs,  and  horses,  and  cattle.  They  are  encouraged  to 
raise  all  their  meat  at  home.  They  are  urged  to  have  a 
garden  and  to  raise  enough  corn  to  give  them  their  meal 
as  well  as  feed.  While  at  Mr.  Boney's  place  he  called  his 
Negroes  together  for  me  to  speak  to  them  on  better  farm 
ing,  and  at  that  meeting  offered  to  give  them  liberal  first, 
second  and  third  money  prizes  for  the  most  improvement 
during  the  year.  There  are  others  like  Mr.  Boney  and  in 
them  there  is  much  hope  for  the  negro  race. 


102         PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

Better  Tenants. 

Likewise  there  are  exceptions  among  tenants.  Here  and 
there  one  finds  a  tenant  who  will  not  drink,  who  saves  his 
money  and  who  means  later  to  buy  land.  I  found  one  such 
on  the  Brazos  River,  Texas,  who  after  paying  all  his  bills 
for  the  year  put  three  thousand  dollars  in  the  bank  as  the 
result  of  his  year's  labor.  Another  one  on  the  same  plan 
tation  started  without  a  dollar  in  money  and  five  hundred 
dollars  in  debt.  He  bought  two  yoke  of  oxen  with  which 
he  made  his  crop,  and  when  the  year  closed,  after  paying  for 
his  oxen  and  settling  his  debts,  he  put  eight  hundred  dollars 
in  the  bank.  But  these  are  the  rare  exceptions.  Most 
Negroes  have  not  the  self-denial  to  do  a  thing  of  this  kind, 
under  the  existing  circumstances. 

I  believe  if  the  plantations  in  the  South  are  ever  to  come 
to  their  best  producing  efficiency,  it  must  be  not  through  the 
exploitation  of  the  tenant,  but  through  giving  him  the 
largest  possible  share  in  the  fruits  of  his  labor  and  encour 
aging  him  to  save  the  same,  thus  becoming  a  more  respon 
sible  and  respectable  citizen.  The  one  sure  escape  from  the 
evils  of  the  tenant  system  is  to  help  the  Negro  buy  land 
and  to  farm  for  himself. 

The  One-Crop  System. 

I  have  said  the  one  crop  system  means  larger  farms  and 
tenantry.  It  also  means  a  very  rapid  deterioration  of  the 
soil.  As  one  rides  through  Georgia,  South  Carolina  or  Vir 
ginia,  he  sees  literally  thousands  of  acres  of  worn-out  land 
from  which  all  the  fertility  has  been  taken,  and  it  has  been 
turned  out  as  worthless.  This  is  due  to  the  continual  rota 
tion  of  a  single  crop,  like  cotton,  corn  or  tobacco. 

But  the  wearing  out  of  the  soil  is  not  the  only  evil  of  the 
one  crop  system.  It  means  poverty  and  lack  of  home  com 
fort.  The  man  who  plants  all  his  field  in  cotton  must  spend 
most  of  his  ready  cash  for  meat  and  cornmeal ;  while  if  he 


THE  NEW  TYPE  OF  NEGRO  FARMER      103 

had  planted  only  a  part  of  his  field  in  corn  he  might  have 
a  few  good  hogs,  a  garden,  some  chickens  and  his  own  meal 
right  at  home,  and  whatever  ready  cash  his  cotton  brought 
might  be  spent  in  comforts  or  simple  luxuries. 

Thus  on  St.  Helena  Island  one  of  the  managers  of  the 
stores  told  me  that  the  7,000  Negroes  on  the  island  bought  at 
least  three-fourths  of  all  the  meat  they  ate,  and  bought  large 
quantities  of  grits  (ground  corn),  both  of  which  they  might 
easily  have  raised  at  home.  Speaking  of  the  evils  of  the 
tenant  system,  in  its  relation  to  soil  deterioration,  Prof. 
Carl  Kelsey  says: 

".  .  .  This  system  has  hindered  the  development  of 
diversified  farming,  which  today  is  one  of  the  greatest  needs 
of  the  South.  The  advances  (by  the  landlord)  have  been 
conditioned  upon  the  planting  and  cultivating  a  given 
amount  of  cotton.  .  .  .  All  else  has  faded  into  insig 
nificance  before  the  necessity  of  raising  cotton.  The  result 
on  the  fertility  of  the  soil  is  also  evident.  Luckily  cotton 
makes  light  demands  on  the  land,  but  the  thin  soil  of  many 
districts  has  been  unable  to  stand  even  the  light  demands. 
Guano  came  just  in  time,  and  the  later  commercial  ferti 
lizers  have  postponed  the  evil  day.  The  development  of  the 
cotton  mills  has  also  served  to  give  a  local  market,  which  has 
stimulated  the  production  of  cotton.  It  seems  rather  evi 
dent,  however,  that  the  increasing  development  of  western 
lands  will  put  a  heavier  burden  upon  the  Atlantic  slope. 
This,  of  course,  will  not  effect  the  culture  of  sea  island 
cotton,  which  is  grown  in  only  limited  areas.  To  meet  this 
handicap  a  more  diversified  agriculture  must  gradually  sup 
plant  in  some  way  the  present  over-attention  to  cotton.  In 
early  days  Virginia  raised  much  cotton,  now  it  stands  toward 
the  bottom  of  the  cotton  States.  Perhaps  it  is  safe  to  say 
that  Virginia  land  has  been  as  much  injured  by  the  more 
exhaustive  crop,  tobacco,  as  the  other  States  by  cotton. 
Large  areas  have  been  allowed  to  go  back  to  the  woods  and 


104    PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

local  conditions  have  greatly  changed.  How  this  diversi 
fication  is  to  be  brought  about  for  the  negro  is  one  of  the 
most  important  questions." 

Country  Life  and  Isolation. 

One  of  the  most  serious  problems  of  country  life,  and 
perhaps  the  one  more  difficult  to  meet  than  any  other,  is 
that  of  isolation.  One  prime  difference  between  city  life 
and  country  life  lies  in  the  fact  that  in  the  former  one 
continually  touches  elbows  with  many  others  engaged  in 
similar  pursuits.  Out  of  this  social  contact  comes  con 
tagion  of  character  and  inspiration  and  stimulus  for  high 
endeavor.  Reading  will  not  take  the  place  of  this  personal 
association.  But  it  is  just  this  lack  of  social  contact  which 
makes  the  most  serious  handicap  to  progress  in  the  country. 
Families  are  scattered,  particularly  in  the  South,  where 
population  is  sparse,  and  there  is  little  of  community  life. 
The  woman  especially  is  at  home  all  day  alone,  and  the  man 
not  infrequently  works  by  himself  in  the  field.  Here  is  a 
special  handicap  for  the  negro  farmer.  He  is  gregarious 
and  does  his  best  work  in  a  group  where  all  move  to  the 
monotonous  sound  of  an  oft-repeated  refrain.  Besides  the 
bleakness  and  barrenness  of  the  country  home,  the  school 
and  church  of  the  Negro  are  enough  to  send  cold  chills 
through  one's  whole  system.  I  have  been  in  close  cor 
respondence  with  the  United  States  farm  demonstrators 
over  the  South.  I  have  before  me  full  reports  from  almost 
all  of  them,  in  which  they  say,  almost  to  a  man,  that  the 
rural  Negro  has  no  form  of  recreation  or  amusement.  A 
few  say  the  men  go  to  town  for  recreation.  There  are  no 
places  of  recreation  where  people  gather  to  meet  each  other. 
How  to  overcome  these  baneful  influences  and  keep  the 
country  people  satisfied  with  the  country  is  the  herculean 
task  of  our  present  day. 

This  perhaps  can  best  be  done  by  setting  up  better  meth- 


THE  NEW  TYPE  OF  NEGRO  FARMER  105 

ods  of  communication  by  way  of  rural  mail,  rural  telephone, 
and  better  roads.  Many  a  county  would  find  it  a  paying 
investment  to  vote  heavy  bonds  for  good  country  roads, 
even  though  a  large  proportion  of  the  taxes  fell  on  the  city, 
because  it  would  give  a  more  prosperous  and  contented  coun 
try  life,  and  in  its  final  analysis  few  Southern  counties  are 
wholly  prosperous  save  in  so  far  as  the  agricultural  pursuits 
are  in  a  flourishing  condition. 

Make  Schoolfc  Attractive. 

Furthermore,  we  must  do  more  to  make  the  country 
school  attractive,  and  make  it  more  of  a  community  center. 
I  do  not  know  anything  more  dreary  than  a  little  frame 
school-house,  unpainted,  set  in  a  small  stumpy  piece  of 
ground,  with  the  weeds  growing  rank  about  it,  and  sur 
rounded  by  an  atmosphere  of  disuse  and  decay.  This  is  poor 
economy.  This  little  house  should  be  neat  and  well  painted, 
the  grounds  should  be  well  kept,  flowers  should  be  bloom 
ing  much  of  the  year,  it  should  have  an  air  of  prosperity  and 
cheer  about  it.  Then  it  should  be  opened  once  a  week  at 
least  for  some  form  of  entertainment.  There  should  be 
spelling  bees,  moving  pictures,  social  evenings,  farmers' 
meetings,  mothers'  clubs,  boys'  debates,  sewing  circles  and 
what  not,  held  in  this  little  building.  In  other  words,  it 
should  act  as  the  social  center  and  clearing  house  of  the 
community.  It  is  set  there  not  simply  as  a  place  for  teach 
ing  children  their  a-b,  ab's,  but  as  a  place  to  teach  the 
whole  community  how  to  live.  As  I  have  remarked  in 
another  place,  the  school  grounds  ought  to  be  the  play 
ground  of  the  whole  community.  Now  compare  this  ideal 
with  what  actually  exists  in  any  colored  community  you 
know !  How  that  old  house  shrivels  and  dwarfs  in  the 
presence  of  a  picture  of  what  it  might  be.  When  we  get  a 
sufficient  number  of  county  superintendents  who  really  care 
for  the  rural  school  community,  both  white  and  colored,  we 


106    PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

will  be  on  the  road  toward  this  larger  ideal.  In  like  manner, 
more  must  be  done  with  and  for  the  country  church.  We 
need  a  new  type  of  minister  who  is  trained  for  his  place 
in  the  country.  The  old  ideal  that  the  country  church  is  a 
place  to  forsake  as  soon  as  a  city  appointment  can  be  secured 
is  certainly  false.  There  is  no  greater  chance  in  the  world 
than  to  be  the  pastor  and  leader  of  the  religious  life  of  a 
whole  country  community.  There  the  pastor  has  little  com 
petition  for  the  attention  of  the  people.  If  he  is  awake 
and  vital,  he  can  do  what  he  will. 

Functions  of  the  Church. 

President  Butterfield,  speaking  of  the  mission  of  the 
church  to  the  rural  community,  puts  it  thus:1 

"Libraries  have  been  written  in  support  of  the  thesis 
that  human  character  finds  its  heights  only  under  the  in 
spiration  and  guidance  of  the  religious  motive.  There  is 
no  need  of  extended  argument  here.  I  wish  to  say  square 
ly,  however,  that  we  cannot,  in  my  judgment,  hope  ade 
quately  to  idealize  country  life  nor  to  secure  the  largest 
development  either  of  personal  character  or  of  neighborhood 
welfare,  except  by  appealing  to  the  great  Christian  princi 
ples  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  the  Masterhood  of  Jesus  and 
the  Brotherhood  of  Man. 

"This  statement  is  sufficient  to  justify  the  church  in 
standing  specifically  for  the  maintenance  and  enlargement 
of  rural  ideals,  because  the  Christian  church  has  been  for 
centuries  the  institution  through  which  these  great  principles 
have  found  voice.  The  church  has  a  right,  therefore,  to 
assume  leadership  in  the  permanent  work  of  developing  and 
applying  the  religious  motive  to  the  hopes  and  aspirations 
of  men.  This  leadership  just  now  is  peculiarly  imperative 
because  of  the  marked  tendency  everywhere  to  reduce  our 
higher  life  to  an  unreligious  basis." 

"The  Country  Church  and  the  Rural  Problem,"  p.  80. 


THE  NEW  TYPE  OF  NEGRO  FARMER      107 

The  whole  of  country  life  needs  to  be  socialized,  and 
better  means  of  communication,  better  schools,  better 
churches  and  a  larger  community  spirit  will  help  to  do  this. 

Farm  Ownership. 

The  first  mark  of  real  encouragement  lies  in  the  fact 
of  increased  farm  ownership  among  Negroes.  Unfortunate 
ly  until  1900,  the  census  figures  do  not  discriminate  between 
white  and  colored  ownership.  At  that  time  one-third  of  all 
the  farms  in  Southern  States  east  of  the  Mississippi  were 
operated  by  colored  farmers,  but  only  one-fifth  of  these  men 
owned  the  farms  they  operated.  The  number  of  owners  has 
greatly  increased  during  the  last  decade,  there  being  23,822 
more  negro  farm  owners  in  this  section  in  1910  than  there 
were  in  1900.  In  some  sections  of  the  South  ownership  has 
increased  much  more  rapidly  than  in  other  sections.  In 
Georgia  ownership  has  increased  28  per  cent  during  the 
decade,  in  Virginia  21,  while  in  South  Carolina  it  has  in 
creased  only  7  per  cent. 

Thus  in  Virginia  the  Negroes  now  own  1,551,435  acres, 
valued  at  $13,517,807.  There  are  in  Virginia  about  four 
million  acres  in  cultivation,  and  while  the  Negroes  only  own 
about  6  per  cent  of  the  land  of  the  State,  it  is  perfectly  safe 
to  say  they  own  from  one-eighth  to  one-tenth  of  all  the 
land  in  cultivation.  A  large  proportion  of  the  land  which 
they  own  is  in  very  small  tracts  of  from  five  to  twenty-five 
acres,  and  hence  is  largely  in  cultivation.  In  Gloucester 
County,  Virginia,  alone,  the  Negroes  own  1,857  farm  plots, 
assessed  at  $119,381.  These  farm  plots  contain  133,549 
acres  of  land,  being  14.79  Per  cent  °f  tne  entire  acreage 
of  the  county. 

In  visiting  St.  Helena  Island  I  found  that  almost  every 
Negro  owned  his  land — usually  from  ten  to  twenty-five  acres. 
In  one  county  in  Georgia  negro  farm  ownership  increased 
73  per  cent  between  1900  and  1910.  Reports  from  the  United 


io8    PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

i 

States  Farm  Demonstrators  all  over  the  South  indicate 
that  Negroes  almost  everywhere  are  buying  land.  To  my 
surprise,  of  all  these  men  answering  my  question,  as  to 
whether  there  was  any  opposition  to  the  Negroes  buying 
land,  every  man  without  exception  said  there  was  absolutely 
no  opposition. 

Farm  ownership  almost  always  means  better  farm, 
methods,  greater  soil  preservation,  better  farm  buildings 
and  equipment,  and,  what  is  more  important  than  all,  better 
satisfied  farmers,  hence  better  citizens.  It  also  offers  oppor 
tunity  to  give  the  children  better  training,  for  the  child 
stays  in  the  same  school  for  a  number  of  years  and  hence 
does  not  lose  its  grading  from  year  to  year.  Of  all  the  white 
farm  demonstrators  who  answered  my  letters,  I  think  only 
two  questioned  whether  farm  ownership  made  better  farm 
ers  of  negro  men,  and  no  one  thought  he  was  a  poorer 
farmer  because  of  ownership. 

Heroic  Fight  of  Negroes  for  Ownership. 

The  heroic  fight  which  many  an  obscure  negro  farmer 
is  making  in  order  to  buy  his  land  is  splendid  beyond  the 
belief  of  the  average  white  man.  I  was  driving  in  Nottoway 
County,  Virginia,  and  came  upon  a  place  owned  by  a  Negro 
named  Moses  Fitzgerald.  I  went  out  into  the  field  where 
he  was  at  work,  and  found  him  barefooted  harrowing  and 
sowing  clover.  I  learned  something  of  his  simple  life  story. 
Born  a  slave,  starting  with  nothing,  he  began  as  a  boy  to 
trap  rabbits  and  sell  them  for  fifteen  cents  each  and  the 
hides  for  three  cents  each.  In  this  way  he  accumulated 
enough  to  buy  his  first  little  plot,  on  which  he  began  farm 
ing;  saving  scrupulously  every  penny,  until  now  he  owns 
one  hundred  and  fifty-five  acres,  has  built  a  good  five-room 
house,  has  a  good  team,  and  sends  his  children  to  school. 

Another  man  in  the  same  county  interested  me  very 
much.  Both  he  and  his  wife  were  born  slaves.  He  began 


THE  NEW  TYPE  OF  NEGRO  FARMER      109 

buying  his  little  plot  shortly  after  the  war,  when  land  was 
cheap.  The  piece  he  bought  was  badly  run  down;  so  he 
went  out  on  the  public  road  each  morning  at  daylight  with 
a  wheelbarrow  and  shovel  and  picked  up  the  fertilizer  to  be 
placed  on  his  little  plot.  He  now  owns  one  hundred  acres 
of  land,  has  a  new  house  of  five  rooms,  neatly  furnished  and 
spotlessly  clean,  flowers  in  the  yard,  and  good  chickens, 
hogs,  garden,  and  all  the  comforts  one  would  expect  in  a 
good  country  home.  I  could  give  literally  dozens  of  cases 
which  have  come  under  my  personal  observation,  showing 
the  splendid  heroism  of  these  people.  They  richly  deserve 
to  succeed,  and  this  is  worth  knowing  among  city  people, 
for  we  are  all  too  apt  to  judge  the  whole  negro  race  by  the 
lazy,  shiftless  loafer  that  hangs  around  the  alleys. 

Farm  Demonstration  Work. 

If  one  wants  to  see  an  economic  regeneration  where  the 
economically  dead  are  raised  to  life,  the  lepers  are  cleansed 
and  the  blind  have  their  sight  restored,  he  could  do  no  better 
than  to  visit  some  of  the  work  of  the  United  States  farm 
demonstrators  in  the  South.  Some  of  the  things  we  see 
with  our  own  eyes  are  more  wonderful  than  the  fairy  stories 
with  which  our  mothers  charmed  away  our  childish  cares. 

A  farm  demonstrator  is  usually  a  practical  farmer  who 
has  had  some  special  training  in  scientific  methods  of  farm 
ing  and  has  proven  his  ability  to  make  crops.  Such  a  man 
is  employed  by  the  United  States  Department  of  Agricul 
ture  to  study  the  conditions  of  his  county  or  district  with 
a  view  to  improvement  of  soil,  adaptation  of  fertilizers,  and 
choosing  of  seeds,  etc.  This  demonstrator  works  by  get 
ting  a  number  of  individual  farmers  to  agree  to  cultivate  a 
small  plot — usually  from  one  to  five  acres — under  his  direc 
tion.  He  prescribes  the  kind  of  fertilizer,  the  method  of 
cultivation  and  the  variety  of  seed.  These  government 
agents  are  working  now  in  every  State  in  the  South,  though 


no    PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

as  yet  many  counties  in  each  State  are  untouched.  There 
are  both  white  and  colored  demonstrators,  but  in  counties 
where  there  are  no  colored  demonstrators,  the  white  men 
often  help  the  negro  farmers  just  as  they  do  the  white 
farmers.  /  am  sorry  to  say  this  is  not  always  the  case. 

Alabama  Demonstration  Work. 

Just  what  this  method  of  work  is  accomplishing  will  be 
readily  seen  from  the  report  of  Mr.  B.  L.  Moss,  State  Agent 
for  Alabama :  * 

"Reports  received  to  date  from  our  agents  indicate  that 
they  had  an  average  of  thirty  demonstrations  in  cotton, 
averaging  three  acres  each,  or  a  total  of  ninety  acres  of  cot 
ton  per  agent  worked  according  to  demonstration  methods. 
The  same  reports  indicate  that  they  had  an  average  of 
twenty  corn  demonstrations  each,  averaging  two  and  one- 
half  acres,  or  a  total  of  fifty  acres  of  corn  per  agent  work 
ing  according  to  demonstration  methods.  Multiplying  these 
figures  by  seventy,  the  number  of  agents  employed  in  Ala 
bama,  we  have  a  total  of  3,600  acres  of  cotton  and  3,500 
acres  of  corn  worked  according  to  demonstration  methods. 
The  average  yield  per  acre  on  these  cotton  demonstrations 
will  certainly  be  not  less  than  1,200  pounds  per  acre,  against 
500  pounds  average  for  the  State  under  old  methods.  This 
gives  a  gain  of  700  pounds  of  seed  cotton  per  acre,  worth 
$25.00,  or  a  total  gain  on  the  demonstration  cotton  plots 
alone  of  $157,500.  Pursuing  the  same  line,  we  may  safely 
estimate  that  our  demonstrations  will  each  average  thirty- 
five  bushels  of  corn  per  acre  against  the  ten-year  average 
for  the  State  of  Alabama  of  only  twelve  bushels  per  acre 
old  method.  This  gives  a  gain  of  twenty-three  bushels  per 
acre,  worth  at  present  prices  $20.00.  Hence  we  find  on  our 
3,500  acres  that  we  have  a  total  increase  in  the  corn  crop 

*MS  Copy  of  report  sent  to  Mr.  Bradford  Knapp,  Washington, 
D.  C,  November  16,  1911. 


THE  NEW  TYPE  OF  NEGRO  FARMER      in 

valued  at  $70,000;  $157,500  plus  $70,000,  gives  a  total  of 
$227,500  per  annum  from  demonstration  plots  alone.  Add 
to  this  an  equal  increase  secured  by  our  cooperators  and 
we  have  a  total  increase  in  crop  of  $455,000.  Our  results 
are  a  justification  for  the  existence  of  the  demonstration 
work.  We  have  spent  in  this  State  this  year,  from  all 
sources,  about  $60,000,  and  have  received  in  return  there 
for  not  less  than  $455,000,  or  750  per  cent  per  annum  on 
the  investment." 

Negro  Farmers  Eager  for  Help. 

It  is  my  observation  that  negro  farmers  are  more  eager 
for  help  and  more  amenable  to  instructions  than  the  average 
white  farmer. 

My  question  of  the  farm  demonstrators  as  to  ability  of 
these  farmers  to  follow  instructions  reveals  the  fact  that 
all  agree  the  farmers  are  capable.  The  State  of  Florida 
reports  600  negro  farmers  following  demonstration  methods. 
One  county  in  Alabama  reports  500  listed  as  demonstrators, 
Oklahoma  reports  77  demonstrators  and  249  cooperators.  J. 
B.  Pierce,  State  Agent  for  farm  demonstration  work  among 
Negroes  in  Virginia,  writes  that  he  has  six  local  agents 
working  under  him  with  1,000  negro  farmers  doing  demon 
stration  work.  J.  E.  Blanton,  of  St.  Helena  Island,  writes 
he  has  seventy  negro  farmers  demonstrating  with  him,  and 
so  the  story  goes.  Every  agent  who  has  tried  it,  and  to 
whom  I  have  talked,  says  the  negro  farmer  is  eager  and 
willing  to  follow  instructions,  and  usually  fully  competent 
to  do  so.  We  need  more  agents  for  Negroes,  and  more  white 
men  willing  to  help  the  Negro  in  the  absence  of  negro 
agents. 

Remarkable  Results  of  the  Work. 

I  went  with  Mr.  Pierce,  in  Nottaway  County,  Virginia, 
to  visit  the  home  of  Wm.  Keaton,  a  Negro,  who  owns 


112    PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

seventy  acres  for  which  he  paid  $900  several  years  ago.  For 
years  he  had  been  living  in  a  two-room  house  because 
he  was  making  very  little  on  his  farm.  He  told  me  he  was 
forced  to  work  out  at  least  half  the  year  to  get  enough 
ready  money  to  keep  something  for  his  family  to  eat.  He 
had  been  making  eight  to  ten  bushels  of  corn  per  acre  prior 
to  his  demonstration  work.  He  began  work  on  scientific 
lines  four  years  ago,  and  is  now  raising  forty  bushels  of 
corn  to  the  acre  on  the  same  land  that  formerly  produced 
only  eight.  He  has  built  him  a  good  two-story  house  of 
four  rooms  in  front  of  the  old  one,  and  it  is  nicely  furnished 
and  was  clean  and  neat.  The  yard  fences  were  all  white 
washed,  the  house  painted,  flowers  in  the  yard  and  rockers 
on  the  front  porch.  He  has  three  good  horses,  three  good 
milk  cows,  seven  head  of  Berkshire  hogs,  a  wagon,  a  buggy, 
and  his  whole  farm  has  an  air  of  prosperity.  His  face 
fairly  beamed  as  he  told  me  farm  demonstration  had  been 
his  salvation. 

Or  take  another  illustration:  Jasper  P.  Lee,  of  Ware 
Neck,  Gloucester  County,  Virginia.  He  owns  only  five  acres 
in  all.  He  was  born  a  slave,  but  has  acquired  enough  train 
ing  to  do  the  farm  demonstration  work.  He  raises  forty 
bushels  of  corn  to  the  acre  instead  of  twenty,  as  on  the 
old  method.  He  has  two  horses,  a  good  cow,  a  six-room 
house,  which  was  well  kept,  and  in  it  I  was  pleased  to  find  a 
very  good  copy  of  Raphael's  Madonna  framed  and  hanging 
on  the  wall.  This  reminds  me  that  in  another  negro  farm 
home  in  Virginia  I  found  not  a  bad  reproduction  of  Sir 
Joshua  Reynolds-West  Window  in  New  College.  The 
woman  in  whose  house  I  found  this  was  a  resident  of 
Gloucester  County  also,  and  while  she  prized  the  picture 
highly,  did  not  know  just  what  it  was. 

Or  to  take  one  more  simple  illustration  out  of  many 
dozens  one  could  give.  Mr.  J.  E.  Blanton,  the  demonstration 
agent  on  St.  Helena  Island,  kindly  drove  me  all  over  the 


THE  NEW  TYPE  OF  NEGRO  FARMER      113 

island  to  see  the  home  and  farm  conditions.  We  stopped 
one  day  at  the  home  of  two  brothers  who  now  own  and 
occupy  jointly  one  of  the  old  overseer  houses  of  slavery  days. 
These  brothers  were  reared  together,  have  always  farmed 
side  by  side,  and  so  each  man  had  about  an  equal  chance. 
Brother  No.  I  agreed  to  tend  part  of  his  land  on  demon 
stration  methods ;  No.  2  refused,  saying  he  could  farm 
as  well  as  any  agent  and  did  not  need  help.  They  planted 
their  corn  side  by  side,  there  being  simply  a  fence  between. 
Each  worked  hard,  for  there  was  a  degree  of  rivalry  there. 
No.  I  made  forty-two  bushels  per  acre  and  No.  2  made 
nineteen.  It  goes  without  saying  both  will  work  on  demon 
stration  methods  this  coming  year.  One  of  the  negro 
preachers  told  me  rather  shamefacedly  that  he  had  laughed 
at  the  idea  of  scientific  farming,  but  he  had  made  last  year 
fifty-eight  bushels  to  the  acre.  When  asked  what  he  had 
been  making  on  the  old  method  he  did  not  want  to  tell,  but 
when  pressed  said  he  had  made  twenty  bushels  on  four 
acres.  To  the  Negroes  this  new  method  of  farming  is  noth 
ing  less  than  a  blessing  from  heaven.  It  opens  the  door  of 
hope  to  them.  It  makes  it  possible  for  them  to  see  a  time 
when  they  can  have  a  respectable  living  and  a  decent  home. 
The  uplift  of  the  negro  race  must  be  accomplished  by 
means  of  the  fulcrum  of  a  sound  economic  progress,  and 
here  lies  the  hope  of  many  a  discouraged  farmer.  What  is 
needed  is  a  demonstration  agent  in  every  county  in  the  South 
to  help  these  men  out  of  their  ignorance  and  despair  into 
larger  ideals  and  a  larger  hope.  Seeing  what  this  work  can 
do,  the  bankers  and  merchants  in  some  places  are  paying 
the  salary  of  such  a  demonstrator,  believing  it  will  more 
than  repay  them  in  added  prosperity  for  the  community. 

Prosperity  in   Other  Phases   of  Life. 

But  economic  prosperity  does  not  go  alone.     Wherever 
the  farmers  are  doing  better  work  it  at  once  shows  in  the 


ii4          PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

homes.  As  I  remarked  before  I  drove  three  days  through 
Gloucester  County,  Virginia,  and  in  all  that  time  I  did  not 
see  a  single  one-room  cabin  occupied.  Most  of  the  people 
have  built  four,  five  and  six-room  houses.  I  went  into  many 
of  these  homes  and  found  them  neat,  clean  and  attractive. 
Also  the  churches  take  on  at  once  a  new  appearance.  I 
visited  four  in  Gloucester  County  and  found  not  a  single 
window  glass  broken,  the  aisles  carpeted,  good  lights  and 
much  more  attractive  houses  than  many  a  white  church  in 
which  I  have  spoken.  The  schools,  likewise,  take  on  a  new 
power  where  the  people  are  prosperous.  The  people  are 
able  to  pay  better  salaries,  they  get  better  teachers,  and  the 
children  attend  more  regularly.  Almost  every  demonstra 
tion  agent  writing  me  explicitly  says  the  schools  have  im 
proved  since  the  demonstration  work  began.  One  agent 
writes :  "We  are  just  now  trying  to  work  out  something; 
in  the  line  of  amusements."  Others  tell  how  they  interest 
the  boys  in  corn  clubs,  of  which  I  have  not  had  time  to 
speak.  Still  others  tell  of  its  influence  in  the  home  in  the  way 
of  gardening  clubs  for  girls.  Speaking  of  its  general  influ 
ence  on  the  life  of  the  community,  S.  H.  Murphy,  a  negro 
demonstration  agent  for  Kenshaw  County,  South  Carolina, 
writes :  "It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  the  increased  yields 
of  corn  and  cotton  have  surprised  some  farmers  to  a  certain 
degree,  but  what  interests  them  most  is  the  fact  that  they  see 
the  beginning  of  the  possibilities  of  the  soil,  the  "door  of 
hope."  Many  who  simply  could  not  make  a  crop  of  corn 
are  delighted.  Incidentally,  "King  (  ?)  Cotton's"  throne  is 
tottering  for  more  reasons  than  low  prices  of  that  product. 
They  see  the  possibilities  in  hogs  and  cattle  with  food  for 
them.  In  February  we  called  a  farmers'  conference,  and  in 
October  re-enforced  this  with  a  county  fair.  Since  the 
showing  of  hogs  here  five  farmers  have  secured  high-priced, 
pure-bred  Berkshire  sires.  Of  course  these  will  help  others, 


THE  NEW  TYPE  OF  NEGRO  FARMER      115 

and  will  prove  themselves  among  the  best  citizens  of  their 
communities  (I  mean  the  hogs)." 

It  has  been  estimated  by  workers  in  the  Census  Bureau 
that  in  1910  Negroes  were  cultivating,  either  as  owners, 
tenants  or  hired  laborers,  one  hundred  million  acres  of  land. 
If  farm  demonstration  work  can  double  the  yield  of  these 
millions  of  acres,  the  white  people  of  the  South  will  be 
stupid  indeed  if  they  do  not  insist  that  these  negro  farmers 
be  given  a  full  chance.  Here  is  the  opportunity  for  the 
white  farm  demonstrator  to  prove  that  he  is  a  democrat 
indeed,  and  believes  in  an  equal  chance  for  all  by  helping  his 
negro  neighbor. 

Spiritualization  of  Progress. 

All  this  material  prosperity  must  be  spiritualized  and 
idealized.  I  mean  we  must  not  allow  these  people  simply  to 
make  money  for  the  sake  of  making  it.  We  must  do  for 
them  just  what  must  be  done  for  all  advancing  people,  we 
must  set  ideals  before  them  which  are  worthy  and  Chris 
tian.  Of  this  need  for  idealism  in  the  country,  President 
Butterfield  well  says: 

"One  grave  danger  to  permanent  progress  is  the  low 
level  of  ideals,  determined  by  community  standards.  It  is 
not  that  the  average  ideals  are  lower  than  in  the  city.  I 
think  they  are  higher.  But  they  come  perilously  close  to  a 
dead  level  in  immense  areas  of  the  country.  .  .  .  As  a 
consequence  the  rural  community  is  in  constant  danger  of 
stagnation — of  settling  down  into  the  easy  chairs  of  satis 
faction.  Rural  life  needs  constant  stimulus  of  imported 
ideas — a  stimulus  of  suggestion  apart  from  its  daily  rou 
tine. 

"Moreover,  rural  ideals  sometimes  lack  breadth  and 
variety.  Life  in  the  country  easily  becomes  monotonous, 
humdrum.  It  needs  broadening  as  well  as  elevating.  It  needs 
variety,  gaiety,  but  these  changes  can  find  their  proper 


Ii6    PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

stimulus  only  in  motives  that  are  high  and  worthy.  Hence 
an  appeal  must  be  made  for  the  cultivation  of  ideals  of 
personal  development  and  neighborhood  advancement. 

"Lack  of  ideals  is  in  a  sense  responsible  for  the  drift 
away  from  the  farm.  Some  people  leave  the  country  be 
cause  they  cannot  realize  their  ideals  in  the  existing  rural 
atmosphere.  Others  go  because  they  have  no  thought  of  the 
possibilities  of  country  life.  .  .  .  Attention  has  been 
called  to  the  fact  that  rural  life  is  more  full  of  poetry  than 
any  other.  But  rural  romance  is  often  stifled  in  the  atmos 
phere  of  drudgery  and  isolation.  This  high  sentiment  is  of 
the  soul  and  can  come  only  as  the  soul  expands.  It  is  not 
merely  an  enjoyment  of  trees,  crops  and  animals.  //  is  in 
part  a  sense  of  exaltation  born  of  contact  with  God  at  work. 
It  has  in  it  an  element  of  triumph  because  great  powers 
are  being  harnessed  for  man's  bidding.  It  has  in  it  some 
what  of  the  air  of  freedom  because  of  dealing  with  forces 
free  and  wild  except  as  they  are  held  in  leash  by  an  unseen 
Master  driver.  It  has  in  it  much  of  worship,  because  of  all 
the  deep  mysteries  of  seed  and  soil,  and  because  of  the 
everlasting,  patient  procession  of  the  seasons  and  their  vicis 
situdes.  /  can  conceive  of  preaching  that  would  give  to 
farm  men  and  women  a  new  birth  of  aspiration  and  hope, 
simply  because  it  should  set  vibrating  the  chords  of  poetry 
and  romance  that  are  strung  upon  the  harps  of  men  at  work 
in  God's  out-of-doors,  strings  too  often  untouched  by  any 
hand  save  that  of  chance." 

When  the  farm  life  of  the  Negro  shall  have  been  so  far 
developed  as  to  lay  a  deep,  broad,  economic  foundation  for 
his  progress,  when  this  economic  welfare  has  found  an  ex 
pression  in  better  schools  and  better  churches,  and  when 
all  the  rural  processes  shall  have  been  spiritualized,  then 
shall  we  be  beginning  to  solve  the  race  question.  Every 
white  and  colored  man  should  be  a  well-wisher  and  willing 
worker  to  this  end. 


CHAPTER  V 
IMPROVEMENT  IN  RURAL  SCHOOLS 


STICKIN'  TO  DE  HOE 

I  ain't  got  no  edikashun 

But  dis  I  kno'  am  true, 
Dat  raisin'  gals  too  good  to  wuck 

Ain't  nebber  gwine  to  do; 
Dese  boys  dat  look  good  'nuf  to  eat, 

But  too  good  to  saw  de  logs, 
Am  kay'n  us  ez  fas'  ez  smoke, 

To  Ian'  us  at  de  dogs. 

I  s'pose  dat  I'm  ol'  fashun', 

But  God  made  man  to  plow, 
An'  git  his  libbin  by  de  sweat 

Dat  trickles  down  his  brow. 
While  larnin'  an'  all  dem  things 

Am  mighty  good  fur  sho', 
De  bes'  way  we  kin  make  our  pints 

Is  stickin'  to  de  hoe. 

To  fill  de  hed  wid  larnin' 

Dat  de  fingers  kan't  express, 
To  dis  poor  ig'nunt  brudder 

Don't  seem  to  be  de  bes'; 
To  git  de  edikashun 

An'  larn  to  work  ez  well, 
Seems  to  my  'umble  judgment, 

De  thing  dat's  gwine  to  tell. 

f— Daniel  Webster  Davit 


CHAPTER  V 
IMPROVEMENT  IN  RURAL  SCHOOLS 

The  overwhelming  per  cent  of  the  negro  people  live  in 
rural  communities,  so  that  whatever  progress  is  to  be  made 
must  come  through  better  rural  conditions.  The  rural 
school,  therefore,  has  a  unique  opportunity  to  minister  to 
the  needs  of  the  negro  race;  hence,  it  is  a  matter  of  para 
mount  importance  that  these  schools  shall  be  thorough,  pro 
gressive,  and  closely  related  to  the  needs  of  the  community. 

The  importance  of  this  agency  is  all  the  more  clearly 
understood  when  we  come  to  see  the  intense  eagerness  of 
the  rural  Negro  for  training.  In  the  country  where  the 
excitement  of  the  city  has  not  distracted  and  spoiled  the 
negro  child,  the  majority  of  them  can  be  found  in  school, 
and  that  quite  regularly  when  school  is  in  session.  Thus 
in  Kentucky,  while  only  51  per  cent  of  the  negro  children 
of  school  age  in  the  towns  and  cities  during  the  years  1910- 
1911  enrolled  in  school,  66  per  cent  of  the  children  of  school 
age  in  rural  communities  were  enrolled.  On  a  visit  to  St. 
Helena  Island,  South  Carolina,  I  found  that  there  were 
scores  of  children  eager  to  come  to  the  school  and  walk 
from  three  to  eight  miles  each  way.  One  morning  just 
after  chapel  service  I  found  three  boys  just  arriving.  They 
were  a  little  late,  for  which  they  looked  a  bit  shamefaced, 
but  I  could  never  have  the  hardihood  to  call  them  tardy,  for 
the  teacher  told  me  they  lived  ten  miles  away,  which  distance 
they  walked  twice  each  day  regularly.  Where  a  whole  peo 
ple  are  as  eager  as  this,  that  institution  which  ministers  to 
their  hunger  has  an  opportunity  unbounded. 

(119) 


120    PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

Weakness  of  the  Present  System. 

It  seems  almost  presumptious  for  one  not  actively  en 
gaged  in  public  school  work  to  attempt  to  criticise  the 
present  system.  Yet,  I  do  not  do  this  without  careful  fore 
thought.  I  have  visited  a  great  many  rural  negro  schools 
in  a  number  of  States,  have  talked  again  and  again  with 
the  men  who  are  giving  their  lives  to  this  field  of  school 
supervision,  have  read  diligently  the  reports  of  all  the  State 
supervisors  in  the  South,  and  have  taken  special  care  that 
the  facts  laid  down  here  are  carefully  sifted.  Rural  schools 
of  all  types  are  poor  enough,  but  the  rural  negro  schools 
are  bad  beyond  comprehension. 

Buildings  Inadequate. 

The  proverbial  log  cabin  as  a  school-house  is  still  not  a 
thing  of  the  past  in  the  South.  Florida  had  in  1910,  313  still 
in  use.  Of  these,  Negroes  have  just  about  their  proportion 
as  compared  with  the  number  used  by  the  whites.  But  it 
does  not  help  matters  to  say  that  some  whites  go  to  school 
in  the  same  type  of  buildings.  South  Carolina  has  1,777 
school  buildings  for  Negroes,  costing  on  the  average 
$246.88  for  buildings  and  grounds.  When  we  remember 
that  this  includes  all  the  buildings  and  grounds  in  cities, 
we  will  readily  see  that  the  average  country  school  building 
is  a  mere  hut.  This  is  certainly  in  keeping  with  my  per 
sonal  observations  in  this  State.  Of  these  buildings  Prof. 
W.  K.  Tate,  State  Supervisor  of  Rural  Schools,  says :  "The 
negro  school-houses  are  miserable  beyond  all  description. 
They  are  usually  without  comfort,  equipment,  proper  light 
ing  or  sanitation." *  Again  he  says  in  his  report  to  the  State 
Superintendent:  "The  negro  school  buildings  are  in  most 
cases  a  serious  reflection  on  our  civilization.  They  are  with 
out  adaptation  to  school  work,  are  destitute  of  all  proper 

"'Forty-third    Annual   Report   State    Superintendent   of   Educa 
tion  of  S.  C,"  p.  115. 


IMPROVEMENT  IN  RURAL  SCHOOLS  121 

furniture  and  equipment,  frequently  without  window  sash, 
usually  unceiled,  often  without  any  kind  of  heating  arrange 
ments,  and  comfortless  and  unsanitary  in  the  extreme.  They 
are  usually  erected  by  private  effort  and  without  any  sort  of 
suggestion  or  direction  from  any  competent  authority." ' 

In  Virginia  the  last  biennial  report  gives  for  1909,  544 
log  school-houses  still  in  service,  of  which  the  Negroes  use 
their  full  share.  I  visited  one  such  school-house  in  Vir 
ginia,  in  which  one  of  the  trustees  told  me  that  in  a  room 
twenty  feet  square,  with  one  small  window,  one  teacher 
had  had  the  year  before  ninety  pupils  enrolled,  with  an 
average  daily  attendance  of  sixty-six,  and  there  were  not 
any  upper  berths,  either.  How  the  teacher  got  them  all  in 
I  could  not  possibly  understand.  • 

Texas,  with  her  seventy  million-dollar  school  fund,  owns 
only  1,457  school-houses  for  Negroes,  only  185  of  which  the 
Superintendent  is  willing  to  report  as  in  good  condition, 
471  are  in  bad  condition,  and  all  the  others  only  fair.  Six 
hundred  and  eighty-two  other  negro  schools  are  taught  in 
rented  buildings.  I  visited  a  large  plantation  on  the  Brazos 
River  in  Texas  where  between  one  and  two  hundred  negro 
families  are  employed,  and  where  it  was  reported  the  land 
lord  cleared  $40,000  in  cash  last  year  off  his  cotton  crop,  and 
yet  the  negro  school-house  was  a  bare  shell,  all  dilapidated, 
and  costing  originally  not  more  than  two  or  three  hundred 
dollars.  There  is  not  a  State  in  the  South  that  has  any 
thing  like  adequate  buildings  for  its  negro  students.  Every 
Southern  white  man  who  reads  these  lines  ought  to  hang 
his  head  with  shame  that  we  have  boasted  of  what  we  are 
doing  for  the  Negro,  and  are  still  trying  to  give  them 
training  in  places,  many  of  which  would  not  be  good  enough 
for  a  horse  or  a  mule. 

"'Forty-second  Annual  Report  State  Superintendent  of  Educa 
tion  of  S.  C,"  p.  92. 


122    PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

Poor  Sanitation. 

One  of  the  weakest  places  of  the  rural  school  is  in  its 
lack  of  sanitation.  In  most  cases  the  sanitation  cannot  even 
be  called  poor ;  there  is  none.  The  superintendent  of  schools 
for  Virginia  reports  for  1909  3,952  schools  having  out 
houses,  not  all  of  them  really  sanitary,  and  3,051  schools 
with  no  toilet  facilities  whatever.  Inasmuch  as  this  includes 
both  city  and  country  schools,  and  for  both  races,  it  will 
readily  be  seen  that  the  rural  negro  schools  would  likely  have 
not  more  than  one  school  in  five  supplied  with  toilets.  I 
have  visited  a  great  many  country  schools  for  Negroes  in 
this  and  other  States  which  would  be  listed  as  having 
toilets,  but  where  there  was  only  one  toilet  for  both  boys 
and  girls.  So  this  is  not  only  a  health  question  but  a  moral 
question.  There  can  be  no  real  morality  fostered  under 
conditions  like  these.  Now,  if  our  public  schools  are  forced 
to  become  breeders  of  indecency  and  immorality,  they  surely 
cannot  serve  the  purpose  for  which  they  were  established— 
the  making  of  efficient  citizens. 

Hookworm. 

One  outcome  of  this  lack  of  proper  sanitation  is  soil 
pollution,  through  which  thousands  of  children,  both  white 
and  black,  become  infected  with  hookworm.  This  pest  is 
supremely  a  disease  of  the  Negro,  though  it  is  fast  becoming 
the  plague  of  white  people  in  the  South.  It  is  supposed  that 
it  was  brought  originally  into  this  country  by  the  slaves 
coming  over  from  Africa,  where  it  is  exceedingly  prevalent. 
This  worm  fastens  itself  to  the  interior  of  the  intestines, 
where  it  sucks  the  blood  of  the  person,  thus  making  him 
aenemic,  weak,  listless,  thick-headed,  lazy.  The  worm  does 
not  multiply  in  the  intestine,  but  the  female  lays  thousands 
of  eggs  which  pass  out  of  the  intestines,  and  if  there  are 
no  toilets,  these  eggs  are  deposited  on  the  ground,  where, 


IMPROVEMENT  IN  RURAL  SCHOOLS  123 

tmHer  favorable  conditions  of  moisture,  they  hatcH  and  live 
for  as  long  as  five  or  six  months. 

How  the  Hook  Worm  Enters  the  Body. 

In  the  morning  when  there  is  dew  the  worm  is  very 
active,  and  as  the  barefoot  boy  or  girl  walks  along,  it 
fastens  itself  on  the  bare  feet  and  begins  burrowing  in 
This  makes  the  feet  a  little  sore  and  we  call  it  "toe  itch," 
"ground  itch,"  "dew  poison,"  "cow  itch,"  etc.  These  are 
just  the  terms  of  the  common  people  to  designate  what  the 
scientist  knows  to  be  hookworm.  Of  course  they  may  also  be 
swallowed  with  polluted  water,  or  with  raw  vegetables  that 
have  not  been  properly  cleaned.  When  once  the  hookworm 
enters  the  body  it  lives  the  life  of  a  parasite,  literally  eating 
the  blood  of  the  person  in  whom  it  dwells.  This  one  disease 
alone  will  explain  thousands  of  cases  of  unambitious  and 
lifeless  boys  and  girls  of  both  colors  in  the  rural  districts. 
For  the  sake  of  scientific  accuracy,  I  quote  in  full  a  state 
ment  from  the  "Report  of  the  Rockefeller  Sanitary  Com 
mission,  1911": 

"During  the  past  year  I  have  gathered  statistics  as  to 
the  privy  conditions  surrounding  4,825  American  farm 
homes,  located  in  six  different  States,  and  I  find  that  2,664, 
or  about  55  per  cent  of  them,  have  no  privy  of  any  kind. 
Of  2,499  homes  tabulated  as  occupied  by  whites,  35.2  per 
cent  have  no  privy,  and  of  2,326  houses  tabulated  as  occu 
pied  by  negroes,  76.8  per  cent  have  no  privy. 

"These  shocking  sanitary  conditions  under  which  so 
many  American  rural  families  are  living  necessarily  increase 
the  causes  of  sickness  and  death,  especially  among  the 
women  and  children,  and  they  decrease  the  efficiency  and 
laboring  capacity  among  the  men. 

"The  fact  that  the  sanitary  conditions  surrounding  the 
Negroes  are  so  much  worse  than  those  surrounding  the 
whites  calls  for  very  serious  consideration,  for  it  involves 


124    PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

not  only  the  health,  efficiency  and  progress  of  the  Negroes 
themselves,  but  of  the  whites  also.  So  long  as  the  Negro 
continues  to  live  as  he  is  living  at  present  in  the  rural  dis 
tricts,  his  home  will  remain  a  reservoir  from  which  all  dis 
ease  may  spread  to  the  whites,  and  the  white  man  owes 
it  to  his  own  race  that  he  lend  a  helping  hand  to  improve 
sanitary  surroundings  of  the  Negro.  One  way  this  can  be 
done  is  by  obtaining  support  for  instruction  in  hygiene 
in  negro  schools.  Another  way  is  by  teaching  the  white 
landlords  the  rudiments  of  hygiene."  : 

Prevalence  of  the  Disease. 

I  have  talked  with  a  number  of  State  experts  and  have 
before  me  the  reports  of  the  Surgeon-General  of  the  United 
States,  and  the  various  reports  of  the  Rockefeller  Sanitary 
Commission.  The  concensus  of  opinion  of  all  these  is  that 
an  alarmingly  large  per  cent  of  the  population  in  the  South 
is  infected.  Dr.  Stiles,  of  the  United  States  Marine  Hos 
pital  Service,  in  his  report  on  hookworm  infection  in  1910, 
writes  as  follows: 

"My  present  estimate  is  that  not  less  than  30  per  cent 
of  the  rural  inhabitants  of  our  Southern  States  have  hook 
worm  infection.  In  some  restricted  localities  fully  90  per 
cent  have  the  infection. 

"Colleges  are  known  in  which  over  30  per  cent  of  the 
students  show  infection  on  microscopic  examination.  County 
schools  are  known  in  which  35  to  95  per  cent  of  the  pupils 
harbor  hookworms.  In  view  of  the  effect  which  hook 
worms  have  on  the  nervous  system,  including  inhibiting 
effect  on  mental  processes,  this  disease  must  be  viewed  as 
important  in  connection  with  the  subject  of  education,  more 
especially  in  the  rural  districts."  : 

^'Rockefeller's  Sanitary  Commission,"  p.  19. 
'"Public  Health  Bulletin"  No.  32,  Washington,  1910. 


IMPROVEMENT  IN  RURAL  SCHOOLS  125 

Not  A  Matter  of  Indifference. 

This  horrible  and  widespread  disease  is  not  a  matter  of 
indifference  to  any  Southern  white  man  who  believes  in  his 
country.  It  incapacitates  the  laboring  classes  for  wealth- 
producing,  thus  making  our  section  drop  further  and  fur 
ther  behind  in  the  economic  race  of  America.  It  makes 
many  thousands  listless  and  indifferent,  so  that  they  drift 
into  pauperism  and  then  into  crime.  We  must  pay  the  bills 
not  only  of  the  law  courts,  jails,  increased  police  force,  etc., 
but  we  must  pay  the  penalty  of  insecurity  of  property  and 
life  because  of  this  criminal  class.  Lastly,  these  diseased 
persons  become  centers  of  contagion,  scattering  this  deadly 
enemy  wherever  they  go.  The  white  men  of  the  South  have 
it  within  their  power  to  see  that  this  disease  is  eradicated. 
We  have  control  of  all  the  public  schools.  We  can  see  that 
every  school,  both  white  and  colored,  has  sanitary  out 
houses.  We  can  see  that  every  school  has  some  simple 
instruction  given  in  sanitation  and  hygiene;  we  can  create 
sentiment  by  taking  a  personal  interest  in  these  problems, 
whether  we  are  teachers,  preachers  or  business  men.  In 
this  work  the  Rockefeller  Sanitary  Commission,  with  its 
State  agents  and  its  host  of  district  agents,  is  making  such 
thorough  investigation  and  doing  such  splendid  work  that 
it  cannot  fail  to  elicit  the  cooperation  and  hearty  support 
of  all  who  understand  the  need.  The  obligation  is  upon 
us,  and  in  this  tremendous  task  the  small  but  increasing 
group  of  Negroes  who  are  awake  to  this  evil  will  be  our 
surest  guides  and  our  able  helpers. 

Insufficient  Playgrounds. 

I  wish  to  refer  to  this  point  again  in  the  chapter  on 
Association  Work,  but  in  mentioning  the  weak  places 
of  our  public  schools,  one  cannot  pass  over  so  glaring  a 
fault  as  the  fact  of  insufficient  playgrounds  and  often  no 
playgrounds  whatever.  Recently  I  visited  a  rural  negro 


126         PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

school  in  Virginia  where  a  group  of  boys  were  attempting 
to  play  ball  at  recess.  It  was  simply  impossible  to  have  a 
game,  because  the  school  only  owned  half  an  acre  of  land, 
and  all  around  were  trees,  stumps  and  other  obstructions. 
A  ball  could  not  be  batted  or  thrown  fifty  feet  without 
striking  one  of  these  obstructions.  Of  course  the  school 
could  not  be  attractive  to  these  boys,  and  as  a  result  most 
of  them  will  drop  out  at  an  early  age.  Of  all  the  public 
schools  of  Virginia,  1,667  of  them  own  half  an  acre  or  less, 
1,332  own  more  than  half  an  acre  but  less  than  an  acre,  and 
only  the  smallest  proportion  own  sufficient  land  to  give 
decent  playgrounds.  No  school  should  be  built  on 
less  than  a  five-acre  plot  in  the  country,  or  less  than  three 
acres  in  the  city.  This  alone  would  do  more  to  keep 
the  children  satisfied  with  the  school  than  would  any 
other  one  thing  outside  the  personality  and  ability  of  the 
teacher. 

Length  of  Term  and  Salaries. 

The  average  salary  paid  all  public  school  teachers  in 
South  Carolina  during  the  term  1910-11,  was  for  negro 
men  $13273,  negro  women  $98.38.  The  length  of  term 
for  towns  was  twenty-two  weeks,  that  for  the  rural  com 
munity  thirteen  weeks,  or  sixty-five  days.  It  will  therefore 
be  readily  seen  that  the  rural  teacher  would  not  get  any 
thing  like  the  above  amount.  This  will  further  be  seen  when 
it  is  remembered  that  the  average  expenditure  per  enroll 
ment  is  for  white  children  $12.62,  but  is  only  $1.71  per 
negro  child,  or  13  cents  per  week,  52  cents  per  month.  In  a 
school  of  fifty  pupils,  which  would  be  a  large  enrollment, 
there  would  be  available  for  teachers'  salary  and  all  ex 
penses  of  the  school,  $26.00  per  month.  The  average  school 
would  be  much  below  this. 

In  Florida  the  average  length  of  a  term  is  ninety-six  days 
as  compared  with  no  days  for  the  whites,  and  the  average 


IMPROVEMENT,  IN  RURAL  SCHOOLS  127 

salary  is  $33.68  for  men  and  $30.18  for  women,  per  month. 
Here  again  the  figures  for  the  whole  State  are  very  much 
higher  than  for  the  rural  districts.  In  Texas  the  average 
length  of  term  in  rural  schools,  both  white  and  black,  was 
114/^2  days.  If  there  is  as  great  a  disparity  between  white 
and  colored  in  the  country  and  those  in  the  city,  as  else 
where,  it  would  reduce  the  rural  colored  schools  to  less  than 
one  hundred  days.  The  average  annual  salary  in  these 
colored  schools  is  for  males  $330.35,  for  females  $264.24,  or 
$53.29  and  $42.47  per  month,  respectively.  For  the  rural 
teachers  this  would,  of  course,  be  greatly  reduced.  Texas 
seems  to  be  the  only  State  in  the  South  which  gives  anything 
like  adequate  remuneration  to  secure  good  negro  teachers. 
The  following  table  shows  the  facts  of  length  of  school 
terms  for  Negroes  in  a  number  of  States,  the  percentage 
of  enrollment,  percentage  daily  attendance  of  those  enrolled, 
and  average  salary  of  teachers. 

According  to  this  table  in  the  States  listed,  124  days 
is  the  longest  average  term  for  Negroes. 

Teachers  Poorly  Prepared. 

According  to  the  report  of  the  Superintendent  of  Edu 
cation  for  the  State  of  Texas,  where  the  public  school  sys 
tem  is  perhaps  as  good  as  can  be  found  in  the  South,  out 
of  13,116  rural  teachers,  10,564  have  had  no  college,  nor 
mal  or  even  high  school  education.  This  large  number  is 
trying  to  teach,  when  they  themselves  have  not  finished  more 
than  the  seventh  or  eighth  grade.  It  is  a  well-known  fact 
that  this  is  far  above  the  preparation  for  the  rural  negro 
teachers.  Of  the  4,413  negro  teachers  holding  first,  second, 
third  grade  or  permanent  certificates,  3,427  held  the  two  low 
est  rank  certificates,  that  is  third  and  second — equal  to  about 
fifth  and  sixth  grade  work  in  a  good  public  school. 

In  Alabama  for  the  year  1911,  of  the  2,384  negro  teach 
ers,  2,210,  or  92  per  cent,  held  either  second  or  third  grade 


128 


PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 


STATISTICS  OF  NEGRO  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS,  ETC. 
Latest  Available  Reports  Used. 


STATE 

Length  of 
School  Term 

Average  Annual 
Salary  of 
Teachers—  Col. 

Percentage  of 
School  Popu 
lation  En 
rolled  in 
School 

Percentage 
Daily  At 
tendance 
of  Those 
Enrolled 

White 

Col. 

Male 

Female 

White 

Col. 

White 

Col. 

Florida  
S.  Carolina 
Alabama.. 

Virginia.  .  . 

Tennessee  . 
Texas  . 

110 

127 
130 

Not 
as  to 
Rural. 
All 

96 
65 
95 

122 

sep. 
color 
109 

$161.66 
132.73 
169.00 

Ru 
162.78 
186.78 

Not  sej 
as  to  se 
Rural 

$144.86 
98.38 
150.00 

:al 
27.27 
167.89 

3arated 
x  or  race 
202.30 

.65 

.78 
.75 

.67 
.63 

72.4 

.51 

.49 
.50 

.54 
.61 

Rural 
71.4 
67.7 

.61 
.61 
.64 

.66 

.64 
.62 

65.5 

.66 
.66 
.65 

.61 

.65 

.58 

59.5 

120 

All     ..     --237.42 

132 

104.6 

124 
93.7 

330.35 

Not  sep 
as  tc 
Rural 

264.24 

arated 
)  sex 
95.91 

North 
Carolina  .  . 

All  .     .  .  118.33 

certificates.  It  is  unnecessary  to  give  further  statistics.  It 
is  clearly  a  case  of  wretched  "unpreparedness,"  and  we  need 
not  wonder  that  the  negro  child  does  not  make  more  rapid 
advancement. 

Poor  Supervision. 

The  last  weakness  which  I  shall  mention — but  by  no 
means  the  last  one  that  can  be  mentioned — is  lack  of  proper 
supervision.  In  setting  forth  the  need  of  better  supervision 
I  cannot  do  better  than  let  Prof.  W.  K.  Tate  speak  in  the 
words  of  his  last  annual  report: 


IMPROVEMENT.  IN  RURAL  SCHOOLS  129 

"I  wish  once  more  to  emphasize  the  value  of  proper 
supervision  in  the  training  of  teachers.  The  City  Superin 
tendent  usually  finds  a  new  recruit  in  his  school  awkward 
and  inefficient.  He  must  continually  assist  her  in  the  man 
agement  of  her  class  and  in  the  improvement  of  her  meth 
ods.  She  progresses  rapidly  under  the  right  kind  of  super 
vision.  The  country  teacher  has  almost  none  of  this  assist 
ance.  The  sole  supervising  officer  is  the  County  Superin 
tendent,  employed  at  a  salary  which  assumes  that  he  is  to 
devote  only  a  portion  of  his  time  to  this  work  and  respon 
sible  for  a  territory  which  makes  it  impossible  for  him  to 
visit  the  schools  more  than  once  a  year.  There  are  counties 
in  South  Carolina  in  which  the  salary  of  the  County  Super 
intendent,  with  300  teachers  in  his  charge,  is  less  than  one- 
half  the  salary  of  the  City  Superintendent  in  the  county  seat 
with  one-tenth  the  number  of  teachers.  .  .  .  During 
the  year  I  have  visited  many  schools  in  which  three  hours 
of  demonstration  work  and  practical  suggestions  would 
double  the  efficiency  of  an  earnest  but  inexperienced  teacher. 
.  .  .  The  education  of  the  Negro  in  South  Carolina  is  in 
the  hands  of  the  white  race.  The  white  trustees  apportion 
the  funds,  select  the  teachers,  and  receive  reports.  The 
County  Superintendent  has  the  supervision  of  these  schools 
in  his  hands.  We  have  expended  this  year  $348,834.60  in 
the  support  of  negro  schools.  I  never  visit  one  of  these 
schools  without  feeling  that  we  are  wasting  a  large  part  of 
this  money  and  are  neglecting  a  great  opportunity"  1 
. .  There  are  literally  scores  of  white  County  Superintend 
ents  who  never  visit  a  negro  school,  and  often  do  not  know 
where  these  schools  are  located.  This  work  cannot  be  made 
efficient  by  correspondence.  If  the  white  teachers  need  help, 
direction,  encouragement,  how  much  more  do  the  negro 
teachers  need  this,  and  yet  the  colored  teacher  gets  less  than 
J"South  Carolina  Report,  1911,"  pp.  105,  106,  115. 


130    PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

one-fourth  the  attention  that  the  rural  white  teacher  gets. 
This  is  poor  economy,  to  put  it  mildly.  If  we  spend  from  a 
quarter  to  a  half  million  dollars  in  each  Southern  State 
annually  on  negro  education,  we  ought  at  least  to  have 
business  sagacity  enough  to  see  that  it  is  well  spent.  The 
one  way  to  bring  this  about  is  for  the  County  Superintend 
ents  to  give  more  careful  supervision  to  these  schools,  and 
for  the  white  boards  of  trustees  to  take  more  care  in  select 
ing  teachers. 

Summary  of  Weaknesses. 

This  statement  of  weaknesses  seems  almost  too  sweep 
ing.  And  yet  we  have  said  nothing  about  the  lamentable 
weakness  of  the  curriculum,  which  is  almost  always  a  misfit. 
It  has  nothing  that  stirs  the  pride  of  the  race  in  itself.  All 
the  books  are  written  with  white  illustrations.  Neither  is 
there  anything  that  connects  the  student  with  his  environ 
ment.  I  visited  a  negro  school  some  time  since  where  the 
boys  and  girls  in  a  third  reader  class  were  reading  some 
fairy  story  so  absolutely  foreign  to  their  conceptions  that 
every  child  was  calling  the  words  mechanically  without  the 
barest  conception  of  what  the  sentences  meant.  Why  should 
not  these  text-books  do  what  is  most  fundamental  at  present, 
help  the  race  to  understand  its  surroundings,  the  plants,  the 
birds,  the  flowers,  the  crops,  the  people?  Why  should  they 
not  give  us  some  simple  stories  of  the  lives  of  the  best  of 
the  race,  thus  helping  to  build  a  race  pride?  Why  not 
acquaint  the  children  with  the  simple,  beautiful  poems  of 
Dunbar,  one  of  the  best  writers  of  the  race?  There  is  a  great 
need  for  the  careful  planning  of  a  new  course  of  study  for 
these  schools. 

Neither  have  I  spoken  of  the  barrenness  and  lack  of 
attractiveness  of  the  school  grounds  and  buildings.  In  my 
judgment  one  of  the  chief  ways  of  keeping  more  of  these 
boys  and  girls  in  the  country  is  to  give  them  more  attractive 


IMPROVEMENT  IN  RURAL  SCHOOLS  131 

schools,  churches  and  homes.  No  wonder  the  Negro  is 
leaving  the  country.  There  is  nothing  there  to  attract  him. 
If  we  would  spend  less  time  berating  him  for  moving  to 
town,  and  more  time  giving  him  an  efficient  and  attractive 
rural  school,  we  would  show  a  larger  statesmanship. 

If  we  could  secure  more  comfortable  buildings,  establish 
more  sanitary  practices,  give  longer  terms,  better  teachers, 
more  thorough  supervision  and  have  courses  more  adapted 
to  the  needs  of  the  race,  we  would  be  beginning  at  least  to 
meet  the  needs  of  the  situation. 

More  Hopeful  Features. 

However,  there  are  many  signs  of  real  progress.  Per 
haps  the  first  is  the  movement  toward  the  consolidation  of 
some  of  the  smaller,  more  inefficient  schools  into  larger  ones, 
where  better  buildings,  better  playgrounds,  two  or  more 
teachers  and  better  grading  can  be  had.  In  Gloucester 
County,  Virginia,  I  recently  visited  a  school  where  four 
small  struggling  schools  had  been  consolidated.  The  col 
ored  people  of  the  four  communities  got  together,  raised 
$400  in  cash  to  help  buy  the  site  and  a  good  dwelling,  and 
then  asked  the  board  to  give  the  remaining  $600  necessary. 
No  sooner  was  this  done  than  the  people  themselves  began 
work  to  raise  half  of  $1,500  to  build  a  new  three-room 
building.  At  the  time  of  my  visit  the  necessary  cash  was 
collected  and  in  the  bank.  Instead,  therefore,  of  four  shabby 
school  buildings,  each  located  on  a  little  cramped  half-acre 
lot,  and  taught  by  a  poorly  prepared  and  inexperienced 
woman,  they  are  to  have  a  first-class,  comfortable  and  attrac 
tive  three-room  building,  with  six  acres  of  land  for  play 
grounds,  three  better  trained  and  more  experienced  teachers, 
150  pupils  instead  of  thirty  or  forty  each,  which  will  at  once 
add  new  zest  to  the  whole  school  life.  This  is  real  progress 
and  this  movement  is  rapidly  spreading.  It  is  estimated  by 
the  Southern  Education  Association  that  1,166  schools  em- 


132    PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

ploying  an  equal  number  of  teachers,  have  been  abandoned 
in  the  last  half  decade  in  the  South.  In  these  schools  28,204 
children  were  taught.  All  of  these  schools  have  been  con 
solidated  with  other  schools  and  all  children  are  now  getting 
much  better  instruction.  Not  the  least  benefit  of  consolida 
tion  comes  from  the  larger  associations  into  which  the  child 
enters  in  the  larger  school.  One  of  the  banes  of  country  life 
is  isolation,  and  consolidated  schools  help  to  remove  this 
evil.  Isolation  is  particularly  the  difficult  problem  with 
negro  rural  schools.  The  older  boys  and  girls  drop  out 
early  to  go  to  work,  so  the  small  handful  of  children  in  a 
little  rural  school,  without  leadership,  become  about  the  most 
abandoned,  forlorn-looking  groups  one  can  possibly  find. 
This  of  necessity  deters  children  from  staying  in  school. 
The  consolidated  school  brings  together  the  few  older  stu 
dents  from  the  various  communities  and  welds  them  into  a 
group  of  leaders,  thus  making;  school  much  more  attractive. 
More  attractive  schools  is  one  of  the  largest  factors  in 
making  the  Negro  population  satisfied. 

Negro  Self-Help. 

One  of  the  elements  in  this  movement  for  consolidation 
is  the  fact  of  the  negro's  willingness  to  bear  a  goodly  part 
of  the  financial  burden.  The  Superintedent  of  Education  of 
North  Carolina  says: 

"In  justice  to  the  negro  and  for  the  information  of 
some  of  our  people  who  have  been  misled  into  thinking 
that  too  large  a  part  of  the  taxes  that  the  white  people 
pay  is  spent  for  the  education  of  the  negro,  it  may  be  well 
.  in  the  outset  to  give  a  brief  statement  of  the  facts  in  regard 
to  the  apportionment  of  the  school  fund.  As  it  is  well 
known,  under  Section  4116  of  the  School  Law,  the  appor 
tionment  of  the  school  fund  in  each  county  is  practically 
placed  absolutely  under  the  control  of  the  County  Board 
of  Education,  the  only  restriction  laid  upon  the  board  therein 


IMPROVEMENT  IN  RURAL  SCHOOLS  133 

being  that  the  funds  shall  be  apportioned  among  the  schools 
of  each  township  in  such  a  way^  as  to  give  equal  length  of 
term  as  nearly  as  possible,  having  due  regard  to  the  grade 
of  work  to  be  done,  the  qualifications  of  teachers,  etc.  The 
Constitution  directs  that  in  the  distribution  of  the  fund  no 
discrimination  shall  be  made  in  favor  of  either  race.  This 
report  shows  that  in  1910  the  negroes  of  city  and  rural  dis 
tricts  received  for  teachers'  salaries  and  building  school- 
houses  $373,390.55  for  238,091  children  of  school  age.  The 
whites  received  for  the  same  purpose  $1,924,704  for  497,077 
children  of  school  age.  The  negroes,  therefore,  constitute 
about  32  per  cent  of  the  school  population  and  receive  in 
the  apportionment  for  the  same  purposes  less  than  17  per 
cent  of  the  school  money.  This  report  shows  that  the  negroes 
paid  for  schools  in  taxes  on  their  own  property  and  polls 
about  $163,417.89,  or  nearly  one-half  of  all  that  they  re 
ceived  for  school  purposes."  ] 

Some  have  supposed  that  the  Negro  is  paying  as  much 
direct  school  taxes  as  he  is  getting  returned  in  school  funds. 
This  can  hardly  be  maintained.  Mr.  Coon,  of  Wilson,  N.  C, 
attempted  to  prove  that  the  Negroes  in  the  South  pay  more 
school  taxes  than  are  spent  on  their  schools.  Thus  in  Vir 
ginia  he  claimed  the  Negroes  paid  $507,305  in  school  taxes, 
but  had  only  $489,228  spent  on  their  schools.  But  the 
figures  were  based  on  proportions  of  Negroes  to  whites  and 
had  glaring  errors.  State  Superintendent  Eggleston  is  a 
real  friend  of  the  negro  race,  and  an  advocate  of  good  negro 
schools,  yet  in  a  letter  to  the  United  States  Commissioner 
of  Education,  dated  October,  1909,  and  printed  in  the  Vir 
ginia  Journal  of  Education,  he  makes  clear  that  Mr.  Coon's 
figures  for  school  taxation  are  about  five  times  too  large, 
and  the  Negroes  paid  directly  less  than  one  hundred  thou 
sand  toward  the  school  fund,  while  nearly  five  hundred 
thousand  was  spent.  While  the  Negro  does  not  pay  a  large 

"'North  Carolina  Report,  1909-10,"  pp.  54,  55. 


134          PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

direct  tax,  every  student  of  political  economy  knows  full 
well  that  the  laboring  man  ultimately  pays  most  of  the 
taxes.  He  it  is  who  creates  the  wealth,  and  in  the  last 
analysis  therefore  the  negro  laborer  pays  his  full  share  of 
the  taxes. 

The  important  item  in  Virginia,  however,  is  that  they  do 
pay  nearly  one  hundred  thousand  direct  school  tax.  It  seems 
perfectly  marvelous  that  a  race  starting  with  nothing  could 
accumulate  sufficient  property  in  one  State  to  pay  one  hun 
dred  thousand  in  school  taxes,  and  nearly  three  times  that 
much  more  for  taxes  for  other  purposes.  But  it  is  sheer  non 
sense  to  claim  that  any  part  of  the  community  shall  have  only 
that  which  it  pays.  The  purpose  of  public  education  is  to  help 
those  who  cannot  pay.  The  State  has  absolutely  no  business 
in  educational  work  save  to  make  better  citizens  of  all,  and 
surely  it  cannot  afford  to  neglect  those  who  most  sorely  need 
help.  Fortunately,  however,  the  Negro  is  paying  an  in 
creasing  proportion  of  his  school  bill  through  taxes. 

Besides  paying  an  increasing  amount  of  school  taxes, 
they  are  also  doing  valiantly  by  way  of  personal  and  volun 
tary  contributions.  There  are  many  of  the  rural  schools 
in  the  South  where  the  Negroes  have  raised  the  money  and 
replaced  old  buildings  with  new  and  comfortable  ones.  In 
many  other  cases  they  have  raised  fully  half  the  amount 
needed  to  erect  a  building  before  asking  the  school  board 
for  an  appropriation.  This  is  a  most  hopeful  sign. 

The  New  Type  of  Curriculum. 

In  many  of  the  rural  schools  there  is  a  new  type  of  work 
done.  The  study  is  much  more  directly  related  to  the  com 
munity  needs.  The  boys,  along  with  their  reading,  writing 
and  arithmetic,  are  taught  how  to  make  shuck  mats,  how  to 
do  simple  school  gardening,  and  the  girls  are  taught  sewing, 
cooking  and  the  simple  principles  of  good  housekeeping. 

This  kind  of  study  immediately  reacts  on  the  practical 


IMPROVEMENT  IN  RURAL  SCHOOLS  135 

ideals  of  the  students.  A  number  of  schools  I  visited  had 
raised  the  money  to  build  fences  around  the  school  yards, 
the  yards  were  clean  and  well  kept,  shrubbery  had  been 
set  out,  the  house  itself  had  been  whitewashed  or  painted 
and  everything  had  an  air  of  prosperity. 

One  school  in  Henrico  County,  Virginia,  had  raised 
money  and  put  in  sanitary  toilets,  laid  cement  walks,  set 
privet  bushes  and  fenced  the  yard.  Another  had  fenced 
the  yard,  bought  a  private  drinking  cup  for  each  child,  thus 
teaching  a  good  lesson  in  hygiene,  and  had  bought  a  range 
and  all  necessary  utensils  for  cooking. 

Another  consolidated  school  with  three  teachers,  taught 
in  a  building  with  four  rooms,  had  raised  enough  money  to 
fit  up  the  fourth  room  as  a  kitchen  with  ample  cupboards, 
bins,  tables  and  range.  They  had  also  bought  and  made 
neat  white  curtains  for  all  the  windows,  as  had  also  been 
done  by  a  number  of  the  other  schools. 

Still  another  school  had  raised  enough  money  to  build 
an  addition  to  the  old  building,  put  in  better  furniture  and 
fenced  the  yard. 

Effect  on  the  Community. 

All  of  this  has  a  most  marked  effect  on  the  whole  com 
munity.  Every  child  learns  to  be  more  neat,  clean  and  self- 
respecting.  He  learns  some  of  the  simple  laws  of  hygiene 
and  sanitation.  He  begins  to  take  a  pride  in  doing  some 
commonplace  things.  He  learns  that  work  is  dignified  and 
that  education  is  not  to  help  one  to  escape  work,  but  to  fit 
one  to  do  work  better.  All  of  this  is  uplifting  to  the  homes 
from  which  the  children  come. 

But  besides  this,  the  boys  take  home  some  of  the  mats 
and  baskets  they  have  made,  and  the  girls  take  home  some 
of  their  aprons,  simple  table  covers,  etc.  These  little  things 
add  much  to  the  attractiveness  of  the  very  barren  rural  home. 
They  immediately  give  a  new  pride  in  the  home,  make  home 


136         PRESENT  'FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

seem  more  worth  while,  make  love  for  home  grow  and  con 
sequently  affect  moral  standards.  One  cannot  measure  the 
real  moral  effect  of  any  single  piece  of  work  well  and 
faithfully  done,  and  that  is  what  this  new  type  of  school 
is  attempting  to  teach.  The  three  R's  are  not  taught  less, 
but  much  better  and  more  effectively  because  of  this  prac 
tical  side. 

In  the  Homes. 

In  visiting  the  rural  homes  where  children  have  had  this 
kind  of  training,  I  have  almost  always  found  the  house 
cleaner,  the  people  happier  and  better  satisfied.  One  notes 
again  and  again  the  pride  of  the  parents  when  a  visitor 
remarks  on  a  neat  scarf,  or  a  good  door  mat,  or  a  useful 
basket  seen  in  the  home,  and  they  are  all  too  glad  to  tell  you 
that  Mary  or  John  did  that  at  the  school. 

Supervision. 

There  are  three  distinct  gains  being  made  in  this  direc 
tion.  First,  is  that  of  a  larger  amount  of  time  and  attention 
given  by  county  and  division  superintendents  to  the  rural 
negro  schools.  This  brings  the  best  type  of  white  men  in 
touch  with  the  teachers  and  those  children  who  really  have 
ambition  to  better  their  conditions.  One  of  the  largest  con 
tributions  which  the  Southern  white  man  can  make  to  the 
Negro's  education  is  through  visitation  to  the  rural  schools 
by  the  County  Superintendent.  Prof.  W.  K.  Tate  says : 

"In  South  Carolina  we  simply  turn  over  a  certain  por 
tion  of  the  school  fund  to  the  negro  schools  and  expect  the 
most  ignorant  teachers  of  the  State,  without  any  sugges 
tions  or  directions,  to  adapt  to  the  special  needs  of  the  negro 
schools  a  course  of  study  and  text-books  designed  primarily 
for  white  children."  * 

It  has  been  my  privilege  to  visit  a  great  many  of  the 
rural  schools  in  company  with  the  division  superintendents. 

*"South  Carolina  Report,  1911,"  p.  116. 


IMPROVEMENT  IN  RURAL  SCHOOLS  137 

I  spent  a  whole  day  last  fall  in  the  buggy  of  Mr.  Arthur 
D.  Wright,  Division  Superintendent  of  Henrico  County, 
Virginia,  visiting  a  number  of  his  schools.  The  very  fact 
that  he  was  interested  enough  to  do  this  work  put  new  en 
thusiasm  in  the  teachers  in  addition  to  the  advice  and 
counsel  he  was  able  to  give.  We  must  have  an  increasing 
number  of  our  choicest  Southern  men  who  will  consider 
this  work  a  part  of  their  duty  and  an  opportunity  for 
splendid  service. 

State  Supervision. 

In  most  of  the  Southern  States  in  the  past,  the  only 
attention  the  State  Superintendent  paid  to  negro  schools 
was  to  get  the  enrollment  in  order  to  swell  his  report  figures. 
It  is  to  be  hoped  this  is  becoming  a  thing  of  the  past.  Vir 
ginia  has  led  the  way  in  securing  the  services  of  one  of  the 
choicest  young  educators,  Mr.  Jackson  Davis,  a  Virginia 
gentleman  of  the  best  type,  and  a  Phi  Beta  Kappa  graduate 
of  William  and  Mary  College,  who  gives  his  entire  time  to 
supervising  the  rural  negro  schools  of  the  State.  He  works 
through  the  Division  Superintendents  and  the  Industrial 
Supervisors,  and  visits  enough  schools  himself  to  become 
a  statesman  in  this  phase  of  educational  work.  South  Caro 
lina  has  the  funds  in  hand  for  the  employment  of  a  man 
for  similar  services.  Kentucky  has  just  secured  the  services 
of  Mr.  Button  for  this  work.  This  is  the  most  business-like 
and  statesman-like  move  yet  made  for  the  upbuilding  of 
the  rural  negro  school. 

Supervisors  of  Industrial  Work. 

Through  the  million-dollar  gift  of  Miss  Anna  T.  Jeans, 
under  the  supervision  of  Dr.  James  H.  Dillard,  of  New  Or 
leans,  funds  are  available  for  the  employment  of  in  negro 
teachers  annually.  These  teachers  are  known  as  Industrial 
Supervisors.  One  usually  has  supervision  of  all  the  indus- 


I33    PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

trial  work  carried  on  in  the  rural  negro  schools  of  a  county 
or  parish.  This  teacher  visits  each  school  in  the  county 
just  as  often  as  possible,  spending  half  a  day  or  a  day  in 
each.  His  or  her  work  is  to  encourage  and  train  the  reg 
ular  teacher  in  this  industrial  side  of  the  school  work  and 
help  in  its  inauguration,  and  at  times  of  difficulty. 

Henrico  County,  Virginia. 

One  of  the  best  illustrations  of  this  work  is  to  be  found 
in  Henrico  County,  Virginia,  the  county  in  which  Richmond 
is  located.  Conditions  here  are  most  favorable  because  Mr. 
Jackson  Davis,  now  the  State  Supervisor  of  rural  negro 
schools,  was  formerly  Division  Superintendent  of  Henrico 
County,  and  gave  it  its  policy;  second,  because  the  present 
Division  Superintendent,  Mr.  Arthur  D.  Wright,  is  a  fine 
type  of  aggressive  worker,  -much  interested  in  this  side  of  his 
duties ;  and  third,  because  they  have  been  extremely  fortun 
ate  in  getting  a  splendid  Industrial  Supervisor  for  the  county 
in  the  person  of  Virginia  Randolph,  the  best  type  of  negro 
woman  with  training,  of  whom  Prof.  Wright  says  in  his 
report,  June,  1911:  "No  public  servant  has  worked  more 
faithfully  or  more  conscientiously  than  Virginia  Randolph, 
the  pioneer  in  the  work,  and,  I  believe,  without  peer  as  to 
her  devotion  to  duty  and  consecration  of  service  or  as  to 
the  practical  results  of  her  work."  There  are  twenty-four 
rural  negro  schools  in  this  county  with  an  enrollment  of 
1,456  pupils  and  an  average  daily  attendance  of  77  per 
cent.  It  will  be  noted  at  once  what  a  high  average  attend 
ance  this  is.  Far  above  that  of  any  of  the  schools  given  in 
an  earlier  table.  The  first  result  of  this  industrial  work, 
therefore,  is  to  raise  the  daily  attendance  by  one-fourth,  i.  e., 
from  61  per  cent,  which  is  the  average  for  the  State  of 
Virginia,  to  77  per  cent  for  Henrico  County.  The  next 
important  result  of  this  type  of  training  is  that  a  far  larger 
per  cent  of  the  school  population  is  enrolled  than  formerly. 


,  IMPROVEMENT  IN  RURAL  SCHOOLS  139 

TABLE  NO.  i. 


1908  AND  1911— A  COMPARISON 


BROOKLAND. 

1908.  1911.       Gain.  Loss. 

Negro  school  population 638  674            36 

Whole  number  enrolled 404  447            43 

Per  cent,  school  population  enrolled..       63%  66%          3% 

Average  monthly  enrollment 326  325                           I 

Average  daily  attendance 262  258                           4 

Per  cent,  in  A.  Ai.  E.  in  A.  D.  A 80% 


FAIRFIELD. 

Negro  school  population 680  505  175 

Whole  number  enrolled 267  308  41 

Per  cent,  school  population  enrolled..       39%          61%        22% 

Average    monthly    enrollment 216  242  26 

Average  daily  attendance 189  209  20 

Per  cent.  A.  M.  E.  in  A.  D.  A 87%          87% 

TUCKAHOE. 

Negro   school   population 583  481                      102 

Whole  number   enrolled 264  260                          4 

Per  cent,  school  population  enrolled..  45%  54%          9% 

Average  monthly  enrollment 210  195                          15 

Average  daily  attendance 155  160             5 

Per  cent.  A.  M.  E.  in  A.  D.  A 74%  82%          S% 

VARINA. 

Negro   school   population 496  431                         65 

Whole   number   enrolled 226  243             17 

Per  cent,  school  population  enrolled..  46%  56%         10% 

Average  monthly  enrollment 185  172                          ij 

Average  daily  attendance 130  128                           2 

Per  cent.  A.  M.  E.  in  A.  D.  A 70%  74%          4% 

EXPLANATORY  NOTE. — The  decrease  in  Negro  school  population  in 
three  districts  is  due  to  the  fact  that  during  this  period  a  consider 
able  portion  of  Henrico  was  annexed  to  the  city  of  Richmond.  A 
very  large  percentage  of  the  school  population  of  Brookland  and 
Fairfield  is  suburban,  and  attends  more  regularly  than  the  other 
two  districts.  It  is  significant  to  note  that  the  two  rural  districts 
show  material  increases  in  the  percentage  of  the  average  monthly  en 
rollment  in  average  daily  attendance.  It  is  also  significant  that  each 
district  shows  a  material  increase  in  tho  percentage  of  the  negro 
school  population  enrolled,  Fairfield  showing  an  increase  from,  39 
per  cent,  to  61  per  cent. 


140 


PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 


TABLE  NO.  2. 
THREE  YEARS'  WORK. 


NOTE. — The  following  figures  show  the  amounts  raised  each  year 
since  the  beginning  of  this  work  by  each  school.  All  of  this  money, 
except  a  balance  of  about  $400,  now  in  the  several  treasuries,  has 
been  spent  in  providing  materials  for  the  industrial  work  and 
improving  the  grounds  and  buildings  of  the  schools. 


— AMOUNT   RAISED — 


Brookland, 


1908-9. 

Barton  Heights *$  50.05 

Broad  St.  Road....       10.00 

Carlton  Street 

Coal    Pit 5.00 

Jeter  6.63 

Mountain    Road....       23.00 
Pole    Road 25.00 


Fairfield. 


.Benedict    3.02 

Boar  Swamp 3.00 

New  Bridge 8.38 

White  Oak  Swamp.  10.35 

Woodville   7.85 


1909-10. 
$  73-25 

10.02 

3-10 

5.51 
23.20- 

38.42 
50.35 

8.00 

14-35 

6.10 

42.16 

45-75 


1910-11. 
$  100.81 
82.66 
17.01 
40.00 
65.93 

IIO.OO 

116.66 

29.20 

57.50 

21. II 

33-15 
72.20 


Tuckahoe... 


.Carbon  Hill 14.18  32.00  71.00 

Greens   9.00  12.50  85.00 

Quioccasin    15.34  20.00  107.54 

Springfield    15.10  *75.oo  36.49 

Westwood    12.00  15.00  *i30.oo 

Zion  Town 29.47  25.00  33-45 

.  Bethel    9.42  16.00  29.24 

Chatsworth 3.00  8.46  35.63 

Gravel    Hill 40.80  50.00  58.20 

St.  James 10.00  15.00  25.20 

Sydney     5.30  6.62  26.00 


Totals   for  county $315.89        $59579        $1,383.98 


Varina. 


*Denotes  the  school  each  year  raising  the  largest  amount. 


IMPROVEMENT  IN  RURAL  SCHOOLS  141 

In  a  number  of  schools  this  increased  per  cent  is  as  high  as 
20,  as  will  be  seen  from  the  accompanying  table  No.  I,  and 
in  one  case  there  was  an  increase  of  41  per  cent. 

A  third  result  of  this  industrial  training  is  clearly  seen 
in  the  amount  of  money  the  children  themselves  raise  for 
school  improvements,  as  is  indicated  in  the  table  No.  2, 
taken  from  the  1911  report  of  the  District  Superintendent. 

What  the  Industrial  Work  Is. 

This  industrial  work  requires  six  hours  per  week  of 
every  child  and  does  not  in  any  sense  make  it  impossible  to 
do  thorough  teaching  along  other  lines.  The  following 
extracts  from  reports  of  individual  teachers  will  indicate 
just  what  was  undertaken  and  its  results: 

"Barton  Heights  School  reports:  Planted  flowers,  laid 
a  walk  around  side  of  school,  whitewashed  fence,  purchased 
two  lamps,  clock,  tables,  dishes,  kitchen  articles ;  taught  cook 
ing,  sewing,  carpentry,  preserving,  canning. 

"Carlton  Street  School  reports :  Taught  cabinet  making 
from  boxes,  sewing,  paper  folding.  Pictures  donated  by 
Dr.  King  of  the  Virginia  Union  University.  A  rented  build 
ing. 

Pole  Road  School  reports:  Taught  cooking,  sewing, 
woodwork  and  basketry.  Bought  flag,  water  coolers  and  in 
dividual  drinking  cups,  shades,  curtains,  tools.  Set  out 
hedge  and  whitewashed  trees  and  fences.  Built  wood- 
house.  Repaired  outhouse. 

"Benedict  School  reports :  Taught  sewing,  raffia  work, 
drawing,  carpentry,  whitewashed  school,  painted  interior, 
patched  doors  and  windows  and  bought  set  of  carpenter's 
tools. 

"White  Oak  Swamp  School  reports:  Taught  shoemak- 
ing,  sewing,  basketry,  shuck  mat  making  and  carpentry.  Put 
up  fence,  put  new  roof  on  school,  built  and  whitewashed 
woodhouse  and  planted  flowers. 


142    PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

"Quioccasin  School  reports :  Taught  sewing,  shuck  mat- 
making,  basketry,  cooking  and  woodwork.  Painted  build 
ing  inside.  Whitewashed  outhouses,  painted  yard  benches, 
sowed  grass  seed."1 

Real  Training. 

This  is  real  education.  It  not  only  dignifies  labor  by 
fitting  the  child  to  do  something  well  and  have  a  pride  in 
it,  but  it  directly  affects  the  ideals  of  the  community.  It  also 
makes  the  school  the  center  of  a  larger  life  and  thus  con 
tributes  to  the  keeping  of  the  boys  in  the  county  where  they 
can  find  the  largest  life  for  themselves,  and  at  the  same  time 
can  be  of  the  greatest  force  in  the  economic  progress  of  the 
section.  I  could  only  wish  that  there  might  be  ten  times  the 
money  available  that  the  Anna  T.  Jeans  fund  furnishes, 
so  that  an  industrial  supervisor  might  be  placed  in  every 
county  in  the  South.  In  this  connection  it  should  be  said 
that  a  supervising  teacher  is  never  placed  in  a  county  with 
out  it  is  heartily  requested  by  the  County  Superintendent. 
The  teacher  is  selected  by  the  County  Superintendent,  and 
to  him  reports  are  rendered.  There  are  scores  of  counties 
now  begging  for  such  supervising  teachers,  but  the  money  is 
not  available  to  supply  the  demand.  Here  is  the  chance 
of  a  lifetime  for  some  philanthropist  to  furnish  such  a  fund. 
It  would  mark  an  epoch  in  Southern  life. 

Better  Trained  Teachers. 

Lastly,  attention  must  be  called  to  the  real  progress  be 
ing  made  in  the  training  of  teachers.  Most  of  the  output 
of  the  better  negro  schools  is  readily  absorbed  into  the  teach 
ing  profession.  When  China  threw  over  her  old  educa 
tional  system  she  suddenly  realized  she  had  no  teachers,  so 
she  put  her  sons  to  school  to  all  the  world.  This  is  the 
situation  with  the  Negro.  He  has  few  teachers,  but  he  can- 

1<(Third  Annual  Report,  Henrico  County,  Va.,  Schools,"  p.  14. 


IMPROVEMENT  IN  RURAL  SCHOOLS  143 

not  put  his  children  to  school  where  he  pleases.  He  must 
wait  until  a  sufficient  number  of  teachers  are  trained  to 
give  his  children  instruction. 

It  is  not  at  all  strange,  therefore,  that  the  great  ma 
jority  of  negro  private  schools  are  putting  most  emphasis 
on  training  teachers,  neither  is  it  strange  that  a  very  large 
per  cent  of  the  graduates  of  institutions  like  Hampton  and 
Tuskegee,  go  into  the  school-room.  These  schools  could 
render  the  South  no  greater  service  than  that  of  sending 
out  teachers  who  are  not  trained  in  head  alone,  but  in  hand 
and  heart. 

Every  teacher  who  attempts  to  instruct  negro  children  in 
the  country  needs  to  have  careful  training  in  agriculture 
and  in  the  simple  crafts.  This  immediately  gives  him  or  her 
a  common  interest  with  the  community,  and  a  hold  upon  the 
life  of  the  pupils.  At  the  Normal  School  for  Negroes, 
Petersburg,  Va.,  every  girl  has  to  take  at  least  three  years 
of  instruction  in  agriculture,  and  two  years  in  domestic 
science.  The  advantage  of  this  is  seen  when  one  finds  grad 
uates  from  that  school  invariably  holding  places  of  real 
leadership  in  the  community  where  they  work.  They  have 
a  sympathy  for  and  a  point  of  contact  with  the  people  among 
whom  they  labor.  No  man  who  visits  the  rural  schools  can 
for  one  moment  begrudge  the  money  spent  in  the  various 
negro  schools  of  the  South  for  the  training  of  capable,  high- 
minded,  true  teachers. 

The  light  slowly  dawns  over  the  far  horizon.  It  has  been 
long  coming,  but  it  is  slowly  driving  back  the  clouds  and 
darkness.  More  money  spent  on  buildings  and  grounds, 
better  sanitation,  better  supervision  by  white  superintend 
ents  and  colored  industrial  teachers,  better  trained  teachers, 
and  more  sympathetic  cooperation  on  the  part  of  the  South 
ern  white  man  will  hasten  the  day  when  our  brothers  in 
black  shall  know  the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make  them 
free. 


CHAPTER  VI 

WHAT  THE  WHITE   CHURCHES  ARE  NOW 
DOING  FOR  THE  NEGRO 


OL'  MISTIS 

Oh,  de  times  is  fas'  a-changin'f 

Ez  de  years  ar'  rollin'  on, 
An'  de  days  seem  mighty  lonesum', 

Sense  de  good  ol'  times  is  gon*. 
While  I'm  'joycin'  in  my  freedum, 

Nor  wish  fur  slab'ry  days, 
Yit  it  warms  my  heart  to  'member 

Sum  good  ol'-fashun  ways. 

Ufo  all  de  plezzun  mem'riz, 

Dar's  one  dat  fills  my  heart, 
'Tis  de  thought  ub  dear  ol'  Mistis, 

An'  'twill  nebber  from  me  part. 
No  matter  what  de  trubble 

De  Lord  wuz  pleased  to  sen', 
We  had  jes'  to  tell  ol'  Mistis, 

She  would  alwa's  be  a  fren'. 

Ef  de  oberseer  'buze  us, 

An'  frum  de  lash  we'd  run, 
An'  weary,  col',  an'  starvin', 

Afread  to  kum  back  horn', 
Jes'  git  word  to  ol'  Mistis, 

She'd  smoov  de  trubble  o'er 
An'  back  we'd  kum  a  sneakin', 

An'  hear  ub  it  no  mo'. 

When   sickness,  kheer  an'  sorrow 

Gib  nights  ub  akin'  pain. 
An'  tears  frum  werry  eyelids 

Kum  pou'in  down  like  rain ; 
Racked  wid  pains  an'  scotched  wid  febers, 

Wid  lim's  a-growin'  col', 
She  had  lin'ments  fur  de  body, 

An'  de  Bible  fur  de  soul. 

—Daniel   Webster  Davis. 


CHAPTER  VI 

WHAT  THE  WHITE  CHURCHES  ARE  NOW  DOING 
FOR  THE  NEGRO 

Many  people  have  supposed  that  the  early  slaves  came 
into  possession  of  the  Christian  message  by  the  mere  acci 
dent  of  proximity  to  the  white  men  who  professed  this  re 
ligion.  To  such  persons  the  one  source  of  religious  in 
struction  for  Negroes  lay  in  the  public  service  of  the  white 
churches,  to  which  services  the  servants,  particularly  the 
house  servants,  were  always  admitted.  It  has  not  been  gen 
erally  known,  even  among  the  younger  generation  of  South 
ern  men,  that  there  were  any  systematic  plans  for  the  propa 
gation  of  the  gospel  among  slaves  outside  this  accidental 
method  of  sharing  in  the  Sabbath  services.  Indeed,  a  well- 
trained  colored  man  has  said  that  he  did  not  know  there 
were  ever  many  white  missionaries  to  the  Negroes  before 
the  war.  But  this  plan  of  attendance  at  the  white  church 
would  not  have  reached  the  great  mass  of  Negroes  on  the 
plantation,  where  the  white  people  were  so  few  as  fre 
quently  not  to  have  any  church  at  all.  So  if  there  was  to 
be  any  gospel  preached  to  the  great  mass  of  farm  slaves 
it  must  be  done  through  direct  rather  than  accidental  work. 

Plantation  Owners  Not  Indifferent. 

As  early  as  1706,  in  the  report  of  one  of  the  mission 
aries  sent  out  by  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the 
Gospel,  we  read,  "Parents  and  masters  were  endued  with 
much  good  will  and  a  ready  disposition  to  have  their  chil 
dren  and  servants  taught  the  Christian  religion."1  There 

Uones'  "The  Religious  Instruction  of  Negroes  in  U.  S." 

(147) 


148    PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

was  some  indifference,  but  little  opposition  to  missionary 
work  among  the  slaves  during  the  first  century  and  half  of 
slavery  in  America.  Real  opposition  arose  after  a  few  in 
surrections  of  Negroes  and  also  after  some  of  the  churches 
had  taken  a  strong  stand  against  slavery.  In  1800  the  Meth 
odist  Conference  passed  a  very  drastic  resolution  condemn 
ing  slavery,  and  for  many  years  following  that  time  slave 
owners  looked  upon  most  jpreachers  and  missionaries  as 
agitators  who  might  easily  do  much  to  make  the  slaves  dis 
satisfied  with  their  condition. 

In  spite,  however,  of  this  fear  of  the  missionaries,  and 
perhaps  partly  that  they  might  control  the  type  of  work 
done,  two  associations  of  planters  were  organized  in  Geor 
gia  in  1830  with  the  distinct  purpose  "of  affording  religious 
instruction  to  the  Negroes  by  their  own  efforts,  and  by  mis 
sionaries  employed  for  the  purpose.  The  first  was  formed 
by  Rev.  Joseph  Clay  Stiles  in  Mclntosh  County,  embracing 
the  neighborhood  of  Harris'  Neck,  which  continued  in  opera 
tion  for  some  time,  until  by  the  withdrawment  of  Mr.  Stiles' 
labors  from  the  neighborhood,  and  the  loss  of  some  of  the 
inhabitants  by  death  and  removals,  it  ceased.  The  second 
was  formed  in  Liberty  County  by  the  Midway  Congrega 
tional  Church  and  the  Baptist  Church  under  the  respective 
pastors,  and  with  one  suspension  from  the  absence  of  a  mis 
sionary,  has  continued  its  operation  to  the  present  time" 


Instructions  to  Overseers  About  Religious  Service. 

The  old  manuscripts  of  instructions  to  overseers  concern 
ing  the  management  of  plantations,  throw  much  light  on 
the  attitude  of  slave  owners  toward  the  religious  instruction 
of  Negroes.  In  a  manuscript  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Sto- 
vall,  Stovall,  Miss.,  J.  W.  Fowler  writes  to  his  overseer 
of  a  Mississippi  bottom  cotton  plantation  as  follows  : 

^'Gospel  Among  the  Slaves,"  Harrison  &  Barnes,  p  75. 


WHAT  THE  WHITE  CHURCHES  ARE  DOING        149 

"I  greatly  desire  that  the  gospel  be  preached  to  the 
Negroes  when  the  services  of  a  suitable  person  can  be  pro 
cured.  This  should  be  done  on  the  Sabbath;  day  time  is 
preferable,  if  convenient  to  the  minister."  5 

Again  he  writes : 

"I  would  that  every  human  being  have  the  gospel 
preached  to  them  in  its  original  purity  and  simplicity;  it 
therefore  devolves  upon  me  to  have  these  dependents  prop 
erly  instructed  in  all  that  pertains  to  the  salvation  of  their 
souls ;  to  this  end  whenever  the  services  of  a  suitable  person 
can  be  secured,  have  them  instructed  in  these  things — in 
view  of  the  fanaticism  of  the  age  it  behooves  the  master  or 
overseer  to  be  present  on  all  such  occasions.  They  should 
be  instructed  on  Sundays  in  the  day  time  if  practicable;  if 
not  then,  on  Sunday  night."  2 

As  early  as  1673  we  find  evidence  that  the  leaders  of  the 
English  church  were  solicitous  about  the  religious  life  of  the 
slaves  in  the  colonies.  During  this  year  Mr.  Baxter  pub 
lished  his  "Christian  Directory,"  in  which  he  has  a  chapter 
of  "Directions  to  those  Masters  in  Foreign  Plantations  who 
have  Negroes  and  Other  Slaves."  In  1702  Rev.  Samuel 
Thomas  was  sent  by  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the 
Gospel,  to  become  the  first  missionary  to  the  Indians  and 
Negroes  in  South  Carolina.  He  died  in  1706  and  was  suc 
ceeded  by  Dr.  Lejean,  who  worked  very  successfully  among 
the  Negroes  until  1717,  when  he  died,  and  was  succeeded 
by  Mr.  Ludlow.  About  this  time  a  number  of  missions 
were  established  by  this  missionary  society  as  widely  sep 
arated  as  New  York  and  the  Carolinas. 

In  1738  the  Moravians  established  missions  exclusively 
for  the  Negroes.  A  year  previous  to  this  Count  Zienzendorf 
visited  London,  where  he  met  General  Ogelthorpe  and  the 
trustees  of  Georgia  and  plans  were  laid  for  the  sending  of 

'"Documentary  History  of  American  Industrial  Society,"  p.  114. 
2Idem,  p.  115. 


ISO    PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

missionaries  to  Georgia.  The  two  missionaries  did  not,  how 
ever,  reach  Georgia,  but  made  a  tour  through  Virginia, 
Maryland,  and  North  Carolina  preaching  the  gospel  to 
Negroes.  They  reported  opposition  on  the  part  of  masters, 
but  in  such  terms  as  to  indicate  that  the  masters  were  them 
selves  doing  something  for  the  training  of  Negroes :  "Va 
rious  proprietors,"  they  reported,  "however  avowing  their 
determination  not  to  suffer  strangers  to  instruct  their 
Negroes,  as  they  had  their  own  ministers,  whom  they  paid 
for  that  purpose,  our  brethren  ceased  from  their  efforts." ' 

Methodists'  Missions. 

Methodism  was  introduced  into  America  in  1766,  and  the 
first  missionaries  sent  out  by  Mr.  Wesley  in  1769.  From 
this  time  on  to  the  revolution,  there  were  a  number  of  re 
vivals,  particularly  in  Virginia  and  North  Carolina,  in  which 
the  Methodists  and  Episcopalians  participated,  and  many 
Negroes  heard  the  gospel.  One  letter  states,  "the  chapel 
was  full  of  white  and  black ;"  another,  "hundreds  of  negroes 
were  among  them  with  tears  streaming  down  their  faces;" 
still  another,  "In  general,  the  white  people  were  within  the 
chapel  and  the  black  people  without/'  The  first  statistics 
as  to  colored  members  of  the  Methodist  Church  are  given 
in  1786,  when  they  number  1,890. 

Episcopalians  and  Baptists. 

Before  the  Revolution  the  Episcopalian  Church  was  al 
most  the  only  religious  influence  in  the  State  of  Virginia, 
and  consequently  almost  all  of  the  religious  instructions  of 
Negroes  in  that  State  fell  to  their  care.  The  Baptist  Church 
was  established  in  this  country  in  1639,  but  grew  slowly  in 
the  South  and  West  until  the  time  of  the  Revolution,  at 
which  time  there  were  Baptist  congregations  in  most  of  the 
Southern  States  and  an  aggressive  work  for  Negroes  was 

Garrison  &  Barnes'  "Gospel  Among  the  Slaves,"  p.  48. 


WHAT  THE  WHITE  CHURCHES  ARE  DOING        151 

being  carried  on.  They  had  ordained  negro  preachers  a.s 
early  as  1723,  working,  of  course,  under  the  supervision  of 
the  whites. 

Presbyterians. 

This  group  of  Christians  entered  America  about  1669 
and  held  their  first  Presbytery  in  1705.  Themselves  fugi 
tives  from  tyranny,  they  opposed  slavery  from  the  first.  As 
early  as  1818  the  Assembly  fully  set  forth  its  conviction  on 
this  topic,  beginning  with  the  words,  "We  consider  volun 
tary  enslaving  of  one  part  of  the  human  race  by  another  as 
a  gross  violation  of  the  most  precious  and  sacred  rights  of 
human  nature."  They  early  began  active  work  for  the 
slaves. 

Missionary  Effort  After  the  Revolution. 

At  the  close  of  the  Revolution  all  of  the  missionaries 
sent  out  from  England  by  the  Society  for  the  Propagation 
of  the  Gospel,  were  withdrawn  and  all  work  was  henceforth 
carried  on  by  the  native  churches.  There  was  no  lack  of 
enthusiasm.  In  1806  the  Baptist  Church  in  South  Carolina 
could  report  thirty-five  hundred  negro  members,  while  by 
1813  they  reported  forty  thousand  for  the  whole  country. 
In  1816  the  Presbyterians  appointed  Dr.  Rice,  of  Virginia, 
as  special  missionary  to  the  Negroes,  and  in  1833  drew  up 
very  strong  resolutions  urging  a  progressive  work  among 
the  slaves.  Scarcely  a  Bishop  of  the  Episcopal  Church 
failed  to  emphasize  this  work,  and  special  helpers  were 
appointed  to  give  attention  to  the  same.  The  following 
paragraph  from  a  statement  of  Rev.  Samuel  S.  Bishop  will 
show  the  activity  of  this  branch  of  the  church: 

"In  1859  there  were  recorded  468,000  members  [colored] 
of  the  various  churches  in  the  South,  of  which  it  is  perhaps 
fair  to  assume  that  more  than  50,000  were  baptized  mem 
bers  of  our  church.  There  are  now  about  18,000  com- 


152         PRESENT  'FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

municants  in  the  whole  church,   10  independent  parishes 
and  about  200  chapels  and  missions." 1 

The  Methodists  were  very  active,  reporting  twelve  thou 
sand  two  hundred  and  fifteen  (12,215)  members  in  1797, 
and  in  1860  they  reported  two  hundred  and  seven  thousand 
'(207,000)  members.  Between  1829  and  1864  the  South 
ern  Conferences  of  Methodism  gave  $1,873,466.27,  which 
supported  missionaries  set  aside  for  negro  evangelism,  there 
being  at  one  time  (1860)  three  hundred  and  twenty-seven 
white  Southern  missionaries  of  this  church  giving  their 
entire  time  to  the  work. 

Method  of  Work. 

A  minister  who  labored  in  these  fields  describes  the 
method  of  work  as  follows: 

"The  gospel  was  preached  to  the  Negroes  in  common 
with  the  whites  everywhere  throughout  the  South,  and  in 
many  places,  smaller  stations  especially,  a  negro  mission 
;was  attached  to  the  work  of  the  pastor,  and  once  a  month 
or  oftener  the  pastor  gave  a  part  of  the  Sabbath  to  the 
'colored  charge/  In  regular  stations  of  the  larger  classes 
the  afternoon  was  usually  a  special  time  allotted  to  the 
Negroes,  and  the  only  exception  to  this  rule  was  in  the  large 
cities,  where  the  Negroes  were  sufficiently  numerous  to  form 
pastoral  charges  of  their  own.  To  those  experienced  and 
often  able  ministers  were  regularly  appointed." '' 

Missionary  Efforts  Since  1860. 

One  of  the  very  serious,  if  not  the  most  serious  result 
of  the  Civil  War  arose  during  the  reconstruction  period, 
when  the  Negro  and  Southern  white  man  became  estranged. 
This  was  disastrous  in  the  extreme  for  all  concerned.  It 
a  dire  calamity  to  the  whole  country  because  it  left  the 

The  Church  Among  the  Negroes,"  Samuel  H.  Bishop. 
'Gospel  Among  the  Slaves,"  Harrison-Barnes,  p.  325. 


WHAT.  THE  WHITE  CHURCHES  ARE  DOING        153 

laborers  of  our  entire  section  without  direction,  control  or 
encouragement.  It  was  disastrous  to  the  Southern  white 
man  because  it  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  save  the  Negro 
from  blunders,  and,  through  that,  save  himself  untold  suffer 
ing.  It  was  doubly  disastrous  to  the  Negro,  for  it  set  him 
adrift  without  a  friend  who  understood  him,  and  at  the 
same  time  robbed  him  of  that  splendid  training  he  had  been 
receiving  from  the  white  man  for  generations. 

And  yet  this  calamity  could  scarcely  have  been  averted. 
The  more  I  have  studied  this  question  the  more  I  have  come 
to  realize  how  it  all  must  have  looked  to  the  Northern  man. 
To  him  it  must  have  seemed  a  hopeless  situation.  He 
heard  more  of  the  one  cruel  master,  and  sworn  enemy  of 
freedom  than  he  heard  of  nine  other  men  who  were  as 
kindly  as  the  system  would  allow  them  to  be,  and  who 
would  gladly  have  freed  their  slaves,  as  so  many  others  had 
done,  had  the  thing  seemed  at  all  practical.  It  was  in 
evitable,  therefore,  that  the  Northern  man  should  distrust 
the  intentions  of  the  South,  and  this  distrust  incapacitated 
him  to  see  the  fearful  blunders  of  the  reconstruction. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Southern  men  returned  from 
the  war  to  find  their  property  destroyed,  their  homes  often 
burned,  here  and  there  a  Negro  who  had  grown  arrogant 
and  unbearably  insolent,  a  foreign  army  administering  their 
government,  and  their  very  own  slaves  set  against  them.  It 
was  inevitable  that  they  should  feel  that  the  North  was 
attempting  to  humiliate  them  in  the  extreme.  What  man 
would  not  have  recoiled  from  the  instrument  used  to  crush 
his  pride  and  destroy  his  leadership?  That  instrument  was 
the  Negro. 

Meanwhile  the  poor  Negro  was  hopelessly  bewildered. 
He  first  expected  forty  acres  and  a  mule,  but  had  little  idea 
of  working  either.  Then  he  began  to  feel — for  he  was  told 
it  was  true — that  he  was  fully  able  to  govern  the  land.  He 
was  not  to  blame  for  believing  he  could  do  what  no  human 


154    PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

ever  did — step  out  of  illiterate  slavery  into  full-fledged  lib 
erty,  out  of  the  corn  fields  into  legislative  halls. 

When  one  looks  at  the  whole  picture  with  its  colossal 
failures  and  mistakes,  one  wonders  how  it  could  ever  have 
happened.  There  were  honest  men,  many  of  them,  in  the 
North;  there  were  heroic,  true,  genuine  souls  in  vast  num 
bers  in  the  South ;  the  Negro  had  proven  himself  capable  of 
deep  fidelity  and  true  devotion  during  those  dark  days — 
and  yet  somehow  there  seemed  to  be  just  enough  bad  ele 
ment  from  all  sides  to  blind  and  befuddle  all.  In  the  awful 
tragedy  of  those  years  the  white  man  lost  his  most  devoted 
and  trusted  follower,  and  the  black  man  lost  his  truest  pro 
tector  and  friend. 

If  the  old  friendly  relationship  could  have  continued 
after  the  war — as  it  would  have  done  largely,  but  for  the 
horrors  of  reconstruction — the  churches  of  the  South,  at 
the  rate  of  progress  they  had  made  from  1844  to  1860, 
would  have  evangelized  every  Negro  in  the  South  long  since. 
But  this  fatal  split  so  embittered  both  sides  that  the  white 
man  did  not  care  to  work  for  the  Negro,  and  the  Negro  did 
not  care  to  have  work  done  for  him  by  his  former  master. 
In  the  chaos  of  the  hour  destruction  reigned  supreme. 

Northern  and  Southern  Churches. 

It  was  natural,  therefore,  that  the  Northern  churches 
should  be  the  first  ones  in  the  field  to  preach  the  gospel  to 
the  liberated  slaves.  Many  of  the  slaves  continued  for  some 
time  to  attend  the  white  churches  of  their  former  masters, 
but  these  churches  dropped  for  a  while  all  aggressive  evan 
gelizing  of  the  freedmen.  Gradually,  as  the  air  has  cleared, 
and  as  men  have  gotten  away  from  the  passion  of  war,  the 
Southern  churches  have  taken  up  the  work  again.  The  time 
is  now  ripe  for  every  church  in  America  to  join  hands  in 
doing  a  great  aggressive  work  for  this  belated  people.  The 
Northern  churches  have  the  money  and  we  of  the  South 


WHAT  THE  WHITE  CHURCHES  ARE  DOING        15$ 

have  the  men.  If  we  would  only  unite  on  a  comprehensive 
and  statesmanlike  policy  we  might  easily  lift  the  Negro  out 
of  his  present  poverty,  ignorance  and  sin  into  a  growing 
knowledge  of  God,  within  the  next  two  generations. 

Lines  of  Work. 

There  are  a  number  of  distinct  lines  of  effort  carried  on 
by  the  white  churches  for  the  Negro.  These  include  assist 
ance  in  the  building  of  negro  churches,  evangelistic  work 
through  missionaries,  both  white  and  colored;  Sunday 
school  efforts,  largely  in  the  cities,  where  white  teachers 
are  available,  and  educational  work  of  all  grades.  The 
Northern  churches  have  put  larger  emphasis  on  church 
building  and  education;  the  Southern  churches  have  put 
most  emphasis  on  evangelism,  Sunday  school  work,  etc. 

Church  Buildings. 

It  is  estimated  that  the  negro  churches  in  the  South 
own  $40,000,000  worth  of  property.  This  enormous  sum 
of  property  has  been  accumulated  from  a  variety  of  sources. 
First,  the  Negroes  themselves  have  given  a  very  large  share, 
probably  more  than  half  of  this.  Second,  the  Southern 
white  people  as  individuals  have  contributed  a  very  large 
amount  of  money.  This  is  particularly  true  of  the  smaller 
churches  which  serve  the  laboring  classes.  Every  member 
in  a  congregation  of  this  kind,  when  the  house  is  being 
erected,  takes  with  him  a  church  card,  with  spaces  for 
dimes,  quarters  and  half  dollars,  and  every  time  he  meets 
a  white  friend  or  acquaintance  he  asks  a  contribution.  It 
is  a  rare  Southern  man  who  will  not  respond  to  this  call 
from  his  hired  man  or  woman.  Of  course,  no  one  can  esti 
mate  just  how  much  has  been  given  in  this  way,  but  the 
amount  would  likely  reach  several  millions. 

The  third  source  of  funds  for  these  churches,  is  from  the 
organized  missionary  agencies  of  the  Southern  white 


156          PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

churches.  This  does  not  represent  a  very  considerable  sum. 
The  last  source  is  that  of  the  missionary  agencies  of  North 
ern  white  churches.  Thus  the  Board  of  Missions  for  Freed- 
men  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United  States  of 
America  reports  for  the  year  ending  May  n,  1911,  a  total 
expenditure  in  negro  work  of  $145,489.48,  of  which  $65,- 
109.01  was  spent  on  church  erection,  church  repairs,  con 
tingent  expenses  and  ministerial  support.  The  Episcopal 
Church,  which  is  both  a  Northern  and  Southern  church 
combined,  is  likewise  aiding  in  the  erection  of  simple  chapels 
for  the  use  of  their  negro  communicants.  This  work  is  not 
very  extensive,  inasmuch  as  they  only  have  eighteen  thou 
sand  members  among  the  Negroes  of  the  country.  The 
Congregational  Church  gives  assistance  to  one  hundred  and 
fifty  negro  churches  with  an  aggregate  membership  of  about 
ten  thousand.  Unfortunately,,  the  figures  are  not  so  tabu 
lated  as  to  indicate  the  exact  amount  spent  on  church 
buildings. 

Missionary  and  Evangelistic  Effort. 

The  Episcopal  Church  carries  on  its  regular  work  among 
the  Negroes  through  the  direct  channels  of  the  church,  the 
white  bishops  having  direct  control  and  supervision  of  their 
churches,  just  as  they  do  in  the  white  churches.  Most  of 
the  direct  work  is  carried  on  through  colored  clergymen, 
lay  readers  and  women  workers.  Of  the  three  classes  of 
workers  there  are  one  hundred  and  nine,  fifty-four  and  one 
hundred  and  twenty-nine,  respectively,  giving  their  entire 
time  to  the  spiritual  life  of  the  Negro.  For  some  time  there 
has  been  a  demand  from  the  negro  contingency  of  the 
church  for  a  larger  amount  of  self-control.  A  plan  of 
"Suftragan  Bishops,"  without  right  of  succession,  working 
under  the  control  of  the  diocese,  and  also  a  plan  of  "Special 
Missionary  Bishops,"  elected  by  the  House  of  Bishops  and 
subject  to  the  diocesan  Bishops,  have  both  been  suggested 


WHAT  THE  WHITE  CHURCHES  ARE  DOING        157 

and  seriously  discussed.  It  seems  quite  evident  that  some 
definite  plan  will  be  adopted  soon  giving  more  self-direction 
to  the  Negro  and  still  maintaining  the  integrity  of  the 
United  Church. 

The  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United  States  of  Amer 
ica  has  two  hundred  and  forty  ministers — eight  of  whom 
are  white — serving  three  hundred  and  eighty-one  negro 
churches,  in  most  cases  partly  or  entirely  self-supporting. 
They  were  able  to  report  one  thousand  four  hundred  and 
twenty-two  members  added  on  examination  during  the  year 
1911,  making  a  total  membership  of  twenty- four  thousand 
and  forty-five  (24,045). 

The  Congregational  Church  reports  for  1910,  one  hun 
dred  and  seventy-two  churches  in  the  South,  probably  one 
hundred  and  fifty  of  which  are  for  Negroes.  There  are 
three  hundred  and  five  negro  missionaries,  ministers  and 
teachers.  In  these  churches  there  were  ten  thousand  nine 
hundred  and  one  (10,901)  members,  with  seven  hundred 
and  ninety-nine  additions.  A  glance  at  the  report  of  the 
A.  M.  A.,  through  which  the  church  does  its  work,  indicates 
that  in  most  of  these  churches  at  least  a  part  of  the  salary 
of  the  negro  pastor  is  carried  by  the  association. 

The  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United  States  (South 
ern  Church)  has  been  carrying  on  through  its  Committee 
of  Colored  Evangelism  an  aggressive  campaign,  so  that  it 
can  now  report  sixty-five  churches,  two  thousand  one  hun 
dred  and  ten  members,  and  two  hundred  and  four  profes 
sions  of  faith.  (Last  report  available,  1908.) 

The  Home  Mission  Board  of  the  Southern  Baptist  Con 
vention  works  in  conjunction  with  the  National  Baptist 
Convention  (colored),  the  two  together  supporting  twenty- 
five  missionaries  in  1910,  reporting  two  thousand  four  hun 
dred  and  fifty-four  (2,454)  baptisms,  three  hundred  and 
sixty-five  Bible  conferences,  with  an  aggregate  attendance 
of  twenty-nine  thousand  eight  hundred  and  eighty-eight 


158         PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

preachers,  and  a  total  addition  to  the  National  Baptist  Con 
vention  of  five  thousand  seven  hundred  and  eighty-two 
(5,782)  members.  If  space  permitted,  one  could  go  through 
the  list  of  most,  if  not  all,  of  the  churches,  showing  that  in 
practically  every  case  something  is  being  done.  But  enough 
has  been  said  to  show  the  method  of  work. 

Sunday  Schools. 

Almost  every  local  church,  if  not  every  one,  has  a  Sun 
day  school  connected  with  it,  and  the  number  of  scholars 
connected  with  the  department  frequently  equals  the  num 
ber  of  church  members.  But  not  every  Sunday  school  has 
connection  with  a  church.  In  fact,  some  of  the  denomina 
tions  are  doing  a  splendid  work  through  mission  Sunday 
schools  organized  and  taught  by  white  people.  In  most 
cases  these  schools  are  pure  missions  and  are  connected 
with  no  negro  church.  Other  churches  have  done  much  of 
this  work,  but  perhaps  the  Southern  Presbyterians  have 
pushed  it  most  vigorously.  From  the  report  of  the  Secre 
tary  of  Colored  Evangelism  in  this  church  we  quote  the 
following : 

"Another  feature  of  colored  missions,  which  should  be 
noticed  here,  is  the  effort  to  establish  Sunday  schools  taught 
by  white  people.  The  number  of  these  varies  averaging 
about  thirty.  The  most  conspicuous  success  with  such 
Sunday  schools  has  been  attained  by  those  in  Louisville, 
Memphis  and  Atlanta,  though  there  are  many  smaller  ones 
that  have  done  much  good.  The  largest  mission  of  this 
kind  in  the  entire  South  'maintained  by  any  white  church,  is 
that  conducted  by  Rev.  John  Little  at  Louisville,  Kentucky. 
He  gives  his  untiring  attention  to  two  mission  schools,  in 
cluding  industrial  classes  for  the  poor  and  ignorant.  Sixty 
(60)  white  teachers  volunteer  their  aid,  and  the  weekly 
attendance  averages  seven  hundred  and  fifty.  Recently 
Other  branches  of  the  Presbyterian  family  have  been  invited 


WHAT  THE  WHITE  CHURCHES  ARE  DOING        159 

to  join  in  a  co-operative  effort  to  properly  support  this  mis 
sion  and  erect  suitable  buildings.  A  commodious  brick 
building  has  replaced  the  shack  which  has  housed  the  Pres 
ton  Street  Mission  so  long." 

Educational  Work. 

By  far  the  most  aggressive  and  widespread  work  among 
the  Negroes  is  in  the  field  of  training.  Here  the  need  is  so 
obvious  that  every  church  has  taken  a  large  share.  The 
Congregational  Church  has  two  theological  seminaries, 
three  colleges,  twenty-five  secondary  institutions,  and  thirty- 
eight  ungraded  and  elementary  schools.  In  these  there  are 
five  hundred  and  seven  teachers  and  officers,  and  thirteen 
thousand  four  hundred  and  forty-nine  (13,449)  students. 
The  American  Baptist  Home  Mission  Society  has  an  in 
terest  in,  operates  and  aids  twenty-six  institutions  in  thir 
teen  States,  with  permanent  endowment  of  $320,0x30,  prop 
erty  valued  at  $1,866,716,  three  hundred  and  fifty-three 
teachers,  and  eight  thousand  two  hundred  and  sixty-five 
(8,265)  students.  Forty  per  cent  of  all  these  students  are 
receiving  instruction  in  industrial  work.  The  Board  of 
Missions  for  Freedmen  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the 
United  States  of  America  has  one  university,  five  boarding 
schools  for  girls'  schools,  ninety-five  academies,  parochial  and 
graded  schools.  On  these  schools  they  spent  for  the  year 
ending  May,  1911,  $80,380.47.  The  Episcopal  Church  has 
a  relationship  to  some  eighty  schools  of  all  grades,  but  the 
American  Church  Institute,  the  educational  board  of  the 
church,  is  now  centering  attention  and  effort  on  six — St. 
Paul's  Normal  and  Industrial,  Lawrenceville,  Va. ;  St. 
Athanasius  School,  Brunswick,  Ga. ;  St.  Mark's  School,  Bir 
mingham,  Ala.;  the  Vicksburg  School,  Vicksburg,  Miss.; 
the  St.  Augustine  School,  Raleigh,  N.  C,  and  the  Bishop 
Payne  Divinity  School,  Petersburg,  Va.  The  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  South,  spent  on  negro  schools  during 


160         PRESENT  'FORCES.  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

1911  $15,000.  The  Home  Mission  Board  of  the  church  is 
fostering  Paine  College,  Augusta,  Ga. ;  Lane  College,  Jack 
son,  Tenn.;  Miles  Memorial  College,  Birmingham,  Ala.; 
Texas  College,  Tyler,  Tex.;  Mississippi  Industrial  School, 
Holly  Springs,  Miss.,  etc.  At  one  of  these  colleges — 
Paine — there  are  five  Southern  white  college  men  and 
women  as  teachers.  The  Southern  Presbyterians  have  Still- 
man  Institute  at  Tuscaloosa,  Ala.,  a  school  which  is  doing 
a  noble  work.  The  Christian  Church,  through  its  Woman's 
Board  of  Missions,  has  six  industrial  schools,  mostly  taught 
by  colored  teachers,  save  at  their  Southern  Christian  Insti 
tute  near  Edwards,  Miss.,  in  which  all  save  two  of  the  sev 
enteen  officers  and  teachers  are  white. 

Industrial  Training. 

One  most  encouraging  feat|jp  about  all  the  missionary 
education  is  that  it  relates  the^tudents  to  every-day  life. 
There  has  been  a  wonderful  change  in  this  regard  in  the 
last  few  years.  Most  of  the  schools  started  just  after  the 
war  were  anything  but  industrial  in  spirit,  but  in  looking 
through  the  reports  of  all  the  leading  mission  boards,  I  find 
practically  all  of  them  are  now  stressing  the  training  of  the 
hand  as  well  as  the  head.  A  very  good  illustration  of  this 
decided  change  can  be  found  in  the  Penn  School,  St.  Helena 
Island,  S.  C.,  which  was  established  forty-nine  years  ago.  In 
its  early  years  it  was  purely  classical,  in  so  far  as  that  was 
a  possibility,  for  the  term  seems  ridiculous  when  one  knows 
the  illiteracy  of  the  people.  On  my  recent  visit  to  the 
school  I  found  an  industrial  and  trades  building  in  process 
of  construction.  I  visited  carpenter  shops  and  shoe  shops, 
saw  basketry  work,  sewing,  cooking,  farming,  poultry  rais 
ing,  laundering,  heard  a  lecture  on  nursing,  saw  the  county 
teachers  gathered  there  for  counsel  and  instruction,  and, 
about  all,  found  an  atmosphere  of  thrift  and  cleanliness 
which  was  wholesome  and  encouraging. 


WHAT  THE  WHITE  CHURCHES  ARE  DOING        161 

Of  course,  I  do  not  mean  that  these  schools  are  given 
over  entirely  to  industrial  work.  Much  attention  is  given, 
and  rightfully,  to  other  phases  of  training,  but  there  is  a 
much  better  balanced  course  of  study  than  formerly. 

Special  Forms  of  Service. 

There  are  some  special  forms  of  service  undertaken  by 
various  churches  which  deserve  mention  here. 

"The  Woman's  Home  Missionary  Society  of  the  M.  E. 
Church  is  undertaking  a  splendid  work  for  the  colored 
women  of  the  South.  Recognizing  the  fact  that  an  intelli 
gent,  Christian  home  is  one  of  the  strongest  bulwarks  of  a 
genuine  civilization,  that  a  nation  rises  no  higher  than  the 
status  of  its  women,  and  that,  as  the  mothers  are,  so  will  the 
children  be,  they  have  undertaken  to  reach  as  many  as  pos 
sible  of  the  future  wives  and  mothers  of  the  race  with  the 
means  at  their  command  so  as  to  form  nuclei  of  intelligent 
and  Christian  homes. 

"We  have  fifteen  of  these  industrial  homes.  They  are 
not  institutions,  but  veritable  homes,  where  the  golden 
chains  of  order,  respect,  interest,  and  love  bind  all  into  a 
common  family. 

"In  all  these  industrial  homes  all  branches  of  domestic 
economy  are  taught,  such  as  domestic  science,  general 
housekeeping,  laundry  work,  plain  sewing,  dressmaking, 
millinery,  drafting,  embroidery,  drawn-work,  crocheting, 
knitting,  basketry,  and  all  kinds  of  fancy  work  (of  which 
they  are  very  fond),  as  well  as  the  proper  conduct  of  a 
home,  etiquette,  ethics,  morality  and  religion. *  In  this 
splen'  J  work  they  spent  during  the  last  quadrennium 
$145  76.85." 

lie  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South,  has  two  men 
(Southern  and  white)  who  are  giving  themselves  to  a  thor- 

1"Report  of  Woman's  Home  Missionary  Society  of  M.  E.  Church, 
1908." 


i6s    PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

oughly  scientific  investigation  of  the  conditions  and  needs 
of  the  negro  church,  with  a  view  to  meeting  these  needs  in 
so  far  as  opportunity  offers.  Also  there  is  a  splendidly 
trained  Southern  young  woman,  Miss  De  Bardeleben,  giv 
ing  herself  to  the  establishment  of  a  deaconess'  training 
department  at  Paine  College.  A  letter  just  arrived  from 
Miss  De  Bardeleben,  after  outlining  the  work  done  through 
the  colored  Sunday  school  teachers  of  the  city,  goes  on  to 
say :  "Our  Colored  Civic  Improvement  League  is  a  reality. 
We  have  about  forty  members,  and  are  trying  to  get  right 
away  a  trained  nurse,  to  inspect,  to  advise  and  help  with 
the  sick  in  the  poorer  homes.  I  have  the  authority  of  the 
council  leaders  to  build  a  cottage  or  workers'  home  here, 
and  to  begin  in  the  house  in  a  small  way  the  training  of 
young  women  for  mission  work."  There  is  no  greater  need 
than  just  this  type  of  trained  social  and  religious  worker, 
and  one  will  watch  with  great  interest  the  growth  of  this 
department. 

The  Presbyterians  of  the  U.  S.  A.  are  starting  a  most 
interesting  experiment  in  what  might  be  called  "farm 
housing"  in  Georgia.  A  large  tract  of  land  has  been  bought 
near  Keysville,  Ga.,  and  is  being  rented  in  small  plots  to 
negro  men  with  families.  After  the  first  year  of  rental,  if 
the  family  proves  industrious  and  willing  to  work,  they  can 
buy  the  plot  on  comparatively  easy  terms.  The  main  idea 
of  the  scheme  is  to  build  up  a  group  of  model  homes  that 
are  sanitary,  attractive  and  comfortable.  The  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  is  putting  special  emphasis  on  Epworth 
League  work  among  negro  Methodists,  having  a  special 
secretary  set  aside  for  supervising  this  work,  who  is  able 
to  report  two  thousand  one  hundred  and  fifty- four  (2,154) 
colored  chapters  in  1911.  Many  other  small  undertakings 
are  under  way  for  the  uplift  of  the  Negro. 


WHAT  THE  WHITE  CHURCHES  ARE  DOING        163 

A  Comprehensive  Study  Needed. 

The  first  impression  one  has,  after  a  comprehensive  re 
view  of  the  efforts  of  all  churches,  is  that  much  unselfishness 
and  genuine  sacrifice  have  been  poured  out  on  the  altar  of 
this  great  cause.  Surely  men  and  women  have  shown  their 
interest  in  plain,  simple  humanity,  unadorned,  not  dressed 
up — just  bare  humanity. 

Another  of  the  most  vivid  impressions  which  one  has 
after  making  a  study  of  the  reports  of  all  the  boards  is 
that  much  of  the  work  is  done  with  inadequate  information; 
there  is  much  duplication,  much  overlapping  of  various  de 
nominations,  much  experimentation. 

There  is  genuine  need  that  a  real  study  be  made  of  this 
whole  problem  of  missionary  work  and  some  comprehen 
sive  scheme  worked  out  by  which  every  church  will  have  a 
full  share,  and  yet  there  will  be  no  duplication.  The  prob 
lem  is  entirely  too  large  to  be  solved  piecemeal,  and  it  is  en 
tirely  too  pressing  to  allow  any  money  or  energy  to  be 
wasted.  There  are  whole  realms  of  endeavor  now  un 
touched  by  any  church,  and  in  other  realms  there  is  not  a 
little  overcrowding.  If  a  commission  of  two  or  three 
scholarly  men  could  be  set  aside  for  a  careful  study  of  the 
whole  field  of  endeavor,  thousands  of  dollars  might  be 
saved,  hundreds  more  might  be  reached,  and  much  future 
friction  might  be  avoided.  To  make  such  a  study  would  be 
a  service  to  the  entire  country.  Some  college-trained  men 
must  do  this  work,  and  I  am  wondering  what  men  will  take 
this  royal  chance. 

More  Southern  White  Men  Needed. 

Another  great  need  is  that  the  finest  flower  of  our  young 
life  in  the  South  shall  take  hold  of  this  big  task.  We  are  in 
the  midst  of  it;  we  know  this  problem  as  no  others  can. 
These  people  are  dying  all  about  us;  we  have  the  message 
of  life.  How  can  we  withhold  it?  Some  of  the  choicest 


164    PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

spirits  of  the  South  have  already  thrown  themselves  into 
this  great  battle.  I  challenge  any  Presbyterian  to  show 
me  two  more  splendid  men  than  Rev.  John  Little  and  his 
cousin,  D.  D.  Little,  both  coming  from  homes  of  the  old 
aristocracy  in  Alabama,  now  giving  their  lives  to  this  great 
enterprise.  Or  who  does  not  admire  such  a  well-trained 
woman  as  Miss  De  Bardeleben,  of  the  Southern  Methodist 
Church?  Or  where  can  you  find  a  more  splendid  type  of  a 
young  educator  than  Jackson  Davis,  of  Virginia?  The  hour 
has  arrived  for  a  great  gift  of  Southern  life  to  this  colossal 
task.  Within  a  week  of  this  writing  a  letter  has  come  from 
a  choice  college  man,  a  senior  in  one  of  our  best  Southern 
colleges,  saying  he  had  been  studying  this  problem  and  had 
deliberately  decided  to  give  his  life  to  God  in  the  uplift  of 
the  Negro.  That  is  a  momentous  decision  for  a  cultured 
Southern  white  man,  but  it  is  no  bigger  than  God  is  asking. 

The  Southern  Churches  Must  Awake. 

No  Southern  man  of  any  pride  can  read  the  scant  re 
ports  of  our  Southern  churches  in  their  efforts  to  uplift  the 
Negro  without  hanging  his  head  in  shame.  Of  course,  we 
have  been  poor.  Of  course,  we  do  not  forget  the  heart- 
sickening  scenes  of  reconstruction  days.  Of  course,  we 
have  been  misunderstood ;  but  if  we  are  men  we  will  forget 
the  past  in  a  mighty  effort  to  redeem  the  present. 

What  a  call  is  this!  Here  at  our  very  door  is  one  of 
the  greatest  and  most  fertile  mission  fields  the  world 
knows.  Here  are  .nine  million  people,  the  vast  majority 
of  whom  are  living  in  poverty,  ignorance,  sin,  and  we,  the 
Christian,  cultured  men  of  the  South,  stand  idly  by  and 
watch  these  poor  wretches  wallow  in  their  despair.  What 
princely  givers  we  have  been !  The  Presbyterians  last  year 
gave  an  average  of  three  postage  stamps  per  member  to 
this  work.  The  Methodists  averaged  less  than  the  price 
of  a  cheap  soda  water — just  a  five-cent  one.  The  Southern 


WHAT.  THE  WHITE  CHURCHES  ARE  DOING        165 

Baptist  Convention  has  only  been  asking  from  its  large 
membership  $15,000  annually,  or  less  than  one  cent  per 
member,  for  this  tremendous  work.  Men  of  the  Southern 
churches,  what  do  we  mean?  Do  we  mean  to  say  by  our 
niggardly  gifts  that  these  people  are  hopeless  and  worthless 
in  the  sight  of  God?  Do  we  mean  to  say  that  one  cent  per 
member  is  doing  our  store  in  evangelising  the  whole  nation? 
Do  we  mean  to  say  that  a  dozen,  or  at  most  a  few  dozen, 
choice  men  are  all  the  Southern  churches  can  muster  to  send 
out  in-  this  mighty  warfare?  Is  it  because  we  are  poor  or 
because  we  are  prejudiced?  Is  it  because  we  are  ignorant 
of  the  need  or  indifferent  to  God's  call?  Or  do  we  think 
God  blundered  when  he  created  the  Negro?  Why  do  we  not 
have  a  larger  share  in  this  work? 

Here  is  a  great  field  ripe  for  the  harvest.  Here  is  a 
nation  stretching  out  its  hands  to  us.  We  know  their  life; 
we  know  their  needs ;  we  can  help  them  if  we  will.  God  pity 
the  Southern  Christians,  the  Southern  churches  and  the 
Southern  States  if  we  do  not  awake  to  our  responsibility 
in  this  hour  of  opportunity.  We  need  a  vastly  multiplied 
amount  of  money ;  we  need  a  volume  of  deep,  earnest,  heart- 
searching,  prayerful  sympathy;  we  need  an  outpouring  of 
the  most  splendidly  endowed  and  gifted  life.  What  we 
have  done  in  the  past  has  been  good;  what  we  do  in  the 
future  must  be  a  thousand  times  better. 


CHAPTER  VII 

WHAT  THE  ASSOCIATIONS  ARE  DOING  FOR 
THE  NEGRO 


NOT  THEY  WHO  SOAR 

Not  they  who  soar,  but  they  who  plod 
Their  rugged  way,  unhelped,  to  God 
Are  heroes ;  they  who  higher  fare, 
And,  flying,  fan  the  upper  air, 
Miss  all  the  toil  that  hugs  the  sod. 
'Tis  they  whose  backs  have  felt  the  rod, 
Whose  feet  have  pressed  the  path  unshod, 
May  smile  upon  defeated  care, 
Not  they  who  soar. 

High  up  there  are  no  thorns  to  prod, 
Nor  boulders  lurking  'neath  the  clod 
To  turn  the  keenness  of  the  share, 
For  flight  is  ever  free  and  rare; 
But  heroes  they  the  soil  who've  trod, 
Not  they  who  soar ! 

— Paul  Laurence  Dunbar. 


CHAPTER  VII 

WHAT   THE   ASSOCIATIONS    ARE   NOW   DOING 
FOR   THE    NEGRO 

The  first  Colored  Young  Men's  Christian  Association 
in  the  world  was  organized  in  Washington,  D.  C.,  dur 
ing  the  month  of  December,  1853.  The  second  association 
was  organized  in  Charleston,  S.  C,  in  April  of  the  year 

1866,  and  the  third  in  New  York  City,  February,   1867. 
The  Charleston  association  has  had  a  continuous  existence 
since  its  organization,  though  at  times  it  has  been  lament 
ably  weak. 

The  first  colored  delegate  who  attended  an  international 
convention  of  Young  Men's  Christian  Associations  was  E. 
V.  C.  Eato,  who  was  present  at  the  Montreal  convention  in 

1867,  representing  the  association  work  of  New  York  City. 
At  this  convention,  General  W.  T.  Gregory,  an  ex-Confed 
erate  soldier  of  Fredericksburg,  Va.,  in  his  report  on  the 
conditions  of  association  work  in  that  State,  expressed  a 
deep  personal  concern  about  the  work   for  colored  men. 
The  following  resolution  was  unanimously  adopted  by  the 
convention : 

"That  the  Committee  on  Associations  of  this  conven 
tion  be  instructed  to  report  such  measures  as,  in  their  judg 
ment,  will  best  promote  the  formation  of  Young  Men's 
Christian  Associations  among  colored  brethren  throughout 
the  United  States  and  British  provinces." 

Mr.  George  A.  Hall,  of  Washington,  made  extended 
tours  throughout  the  South  prior  to  the  Indianapolis  con 
vention  of  1870,  at  which  convention  he  reported  as  follows : 

"There  is  another  branch  of  work  in  the  South  which  it 

(169) 


170    PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

may  be  proper  that  the  convention  specially  consider  in  this 
connection — namely,  the  promotion  of  associations  among 
colored  men.  There  are  already  some  six  or  eight  of  them. 
Of  course,  they  are  small  and  their  resources  are  limited. 
It  is  believed,  however,  to  be  the  plain  duty  of  the  associa 
tions  represented  in  this  convention  to  make  ample  provi 
sion  for  the  prompt  prosecution  of  the  general  work  of 
visitation  of  all  young  men,  without  distinction  of  color,  as] 
soon  as  the  season  will  permit." 

Richmond  Convention. 

The  International  Convention  of  Young  Men's  Chris 
tian  Associations  for  1875  convened  at  Richmond,  Va.,  and 
Major  Joseph  Hardie,  of  Selma,  Ala.,  a  prominent  South 
ern  Christian  leader,  was  elected  President.  During  one  of 
the  sessions  a  petition  from  the  colored  pastors  of  the  city 
of  Richmond  was  handed  Major  Hardie,  in  response  to 
which  he  said: 

"A  number  of  requests  for  prayer  for  colored  young 
men  of  this  city  have  been  handed  in.  There  is  a  great 
work  to  be  done  among  the  colored  men  of  the  South. 
I  place  it  upon  your  hearts  and  your  consciences  here  to 
night,  and  if  you  will  carry  it  to  the  throne,  God  will  bless 
the  colored  young  men  of  this  country,  that  they  may  be 
rescued  from  the  inroads  of  disease  and  corruption  and  the 
many  evils  by  which  they  are  now  surrounded.  They  are 
environed  by  temptations  of  which  you  and  I  know  noth 
ing — seductions,  blandishments  and  difficulties  beset  their 
pathway.  Nothing  but  the  grace  of  God  will  enable  them 
to  stand  and  overcome  these  trials  and  walk  in  the  paths  of 
holiness." 

At  the  next  convention  in  1876  at  Toronto  Major  Hardie 
made  another  appeal  urging  work  among  colored  young 
men  by  a  Secretary  of  the  International  Committee. 

First  Secretaries. 

After  prayer  was  offered  by  Col.  C.  W.  Loveless,  of  Ala- 


WHAT  THE  ASSOCIATIONS  ARE  DOING  171 


After  prayer  was  offered  by  Col.  C.  W.  Loveless  of  Ala 
bama,  Dr.  Stuart  Robinson  of  Louisville,  Ky.,  urged  the 
necessity  of  immediate  action.  There  and  then  seven  hun 
dred  dollars  were  secured  for  the  support  of  a  secretary  to 
work  among  colored  men.  The  first  Secretary  of  the  Col 
ored  Associations  was  General  George  D.  Johnston,  an  ex- 
Confederate  soldier  and  a  warm  friend  of  the  colored 
people.  He  spent  a  year  traveling  through  the  South,  in 
vestigating  conditions  and  needs,  and  reported  at  the  Louis 
ville  convention  in  1877.  In  this  convention,  held  in  the 
South,  the  Associations  of  North  America  deliberately 
voted  to  authorize  the  International  Committee  to  continue 
definite  work  for  colored  young  men.  Representatives  were 
there  from  three  colored  student  associations — Howard  in 
Washington,  and  Fisk  and  Walden  in  Nashville. 

In  December,  1879,  Henry  Edwards  Brown,  the  founder 
of  Talladega  College,  and  also  a  graduate  of  Oberlin  Col 
lege,  a  man  well  known  and  respected  both  by  white  and 
black  alike,  became  the  Traveling  Secretary  of  the  Inter 
national  Committee  in  its  work  for  colored  men.  It 
should  be  noted  that  almost  exclusive  .emphasis  was  then 
placed  on  work  among  colored  students  in  school  and  col 
lege  and  that  emphasis  was  continued  by  Mr.  Brown's  suc 
cessors  so  that  to  this  day  student  associations  outnumber 
others,  in  city  and  country.  The  first  Colored  Student 
Association  was  organized  at  Howard  University,  Wash 
ington,  D.  C.,  in  1869.  The  work  has  greatly  prospered 
under  the  leadership  of  Messrs.  W.  A.  Hunton  and  J.  E. 
Moorland,  who  succeeded  Mr.  Brown  as  the  Traveling 
Secretaries  of  the  International  Committee.  The  former, 
who  is  now  Senior  Secretary,  began  work  in  1890, 
and  the  latter  entered  the  service  of  the  committee  in 
1898.  At  the  present  time  the  city  section  of  the  colored 
department  reports  41  associations  in  existence,  60,554 


172    PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

members,  1,319  men  serving  on  committees,  1,145  Sunday 
meetings  for  colored  men,  with  a  total  attendance  of  85,808, 
in  which  480  men  professed  conversion,  and  1,229  men  en 
rolled  in  the  Bible  class. 

The  student  associations  report  91  organizations  in 
schools  having  9,178  young  men  enrolled,  3,775  of  whom 
are  members  of  the  association.  This  department  reports 
1,051  men  serving  on  committees,  1,369  enrolled  in  Bible 
class,  and  both  city  and  student  combined  report  build 
ings  owned  valued  at  $224,600. 

Mr.  Rosenwald's  Offer. 

The  work  of  this  department  has  had  a  great  impetus 
during  the  past  year  through  the  generous  offer  of  Mr. 
Julius  Rosenwald,  of  Chicago.  On  the  first  day  of  January, 
1911,  at  a  meeting  held  for  the  purpose  of  launching  a 
building  campaign  for  the  colored  men  of  Chicago,  Mr. 
Rosenwald  offered  to  give  $25,00x3  on  condition  a  total 
amount  of  $100,000  was  secured,  and  in  his  announce 
ment  of  this  gift  stated  that  he  would  give  a  like  $25,000 
to  any  city  in  the  United  States  which  would,  during  the 
next  succeeding  five  years,  raise  an  additional  $75,000  for 
a  Colored  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  building. 
Already  the  cities  of  Chicago,  Philadelphia,  Los  Angeles, 
Atlanta,  Washington  and  Indianapolis  are  erecting  magnifi 
cent  buildings  for  the  housing  of  colored  associations,  tak 
ing  advantage  of  Mr.  Rosenwald's  generous  offer.  It  now 
seems  quite  likely  that  during  these  five  years  from  ten  to 
twenty  of  the  leading  Southern  cities  ought  to  be  able  to 
avail  themselves  of  this  offer. 

Work  for  Women. 

The  Young  Women's  Christian  Association  sends  a 
brief  summary  of  the  work  for  colored  women,  as  fol 
lows: 


WHAT  THE  ASSOCIATIONS  ARE  DOING  173 

"The  colored  associations  aim  as  far  as  possible  to  carry 
on  the  four-fold  work  such  as  is  found  in  most  of  our 
cities,  although  not  every  branch  has  been  able  to  do  this, 
partly  on  account  of  lack  of  equipment  and  funds  and  partly 
owing  to  the  lack  of  a  trained  staff.  All  of  them  have  a 
boarding  home,  an  employment  directory,  Bible  classes, 
a  Sunday  vesper  service  and  a  few  educational  classes. 
Some  associations  have  developed  the  educational  work  so 
that  it  includes  besides  classes  in  elementary  English,  arith 
metic  and  grammar,  classes  in  domestic  art  and  science 
planned  to  equip  girls  for  wage-earning.  The  reading 
room  and  library,  informal  talks  and  entertainments  are 
also  features  of  the  association.  Junior  work,  too,  has  been 
somewhat  developed  among  the  younger  girls,  clubs  and 
sewing  and  cooking  classes  being  the  most  attractive  fea 
tures.  .  .  .  There  are  now  in  the  United  States  ten 
colored  associations.  Four  of  these  are  branches  of  the 
central  association  and  thus  are  affiliated  with  the  national 
organization.  .  .  .  The  colored  associations  are  to  be 
commended  for  their  earnest  efforts  to  co-operate  with  other 
organizations  doing  work  for  colored  women.  The  Society 
for  the  Protection  of  Colored  Women,  which  carries  on  a 
travelers'  aid  work  in  many  cities,  is  glad  to  be  able  to  send 
girls  to  the  association  home  for  a  night  or  two,  or  until  a 
respectable  boarding  place  can  be  found  for  them.  Valu 
able  information  has  also  been  given  to  kinds  of  employ 
ment  open  in  the  city,  and  present  vacancies.  The  associa 
tions  work  in  harmony  with  other  societies,  such  as  the 
White  Rose  Society,  and  in  all  cases  the  field  is  so  divided 
that  there  is  no  duplication  or  wasted  effort." 

The  future  policy  of  this  movement  is  outlined  as  fol 
lows: 

"i.  Concentrate  on  the  development  of  existing  asso 
ciations  along  the  following  lines: 

"a.     Securing  of  trained   secretaries  as   local  leaders. 


174    PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

(Provision  has  been  made  for  the  training  of  secretaries  in 
our  training  centers.) 

"b.     Responsible  committee  work. 

"c.     Greater  publicity. 

"d.     Systematic  finance  methods. 

"e.  Educational,  physical,  recreative  and  religious 
work. 

"/.     Enlarged  employment  and  travelers'  aid  work. 

"2.  Organization  for  the  present  to  be  limited  to  those 
communities  having  a  population  of  five  thousand  colored 
women,  where  conditions  are  most  favorable  for  model  as 
sociations. 

"3.  For  other  places  where  conditions  do  not  warrant 
the  establishment  of  an  association,  advise  and  suggest  plans 
for  study  and  investigation  which  may  prepare  for  an  asso 
ciation  in  the  future. 

"4.  Preparation  of  letters  and  literature  especially 
adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  colored  field.  Preparation  of 
bibliography  for  those  wishing  to  study  the  colored  field. 
.  .  .  A  thoughtful  study  based  on  this  outline  will  give 
anyone  a  working  knowledge  of  specific  conditions  relating 
to  colored  women  and  their  needs." 

Need  for  This  Work. 

There  cannot  be  any  doubt  about  the  need  for  such  work 
as  this  which  the  associations  undertake  to  do  for  and  with 
the  young  men  and  women  of  the  negro  race.  If  the  white 
college  men  and  women  need  the  inspiration  and  direction 
of  these  organizations,  how  much  more  do  the  colored  stu 
dents  need  them?  These  latter  students  have  usually  had 
less  of  home  life,  less  of  real  religious  instruction,  less  of 
training  in  leadership,  and  are,  therefore,  all  the  more  de 
pendent  on  outside  influences  for  fostering  their  Christian 
activities. 

It  must  be  remembered,  too,  that  the  students  in  the 


WHAT  THE  ASSOCIATIONS  ARE  DOING  175 

negro  schools  in  the  South,  because  of  their  small  numbers, 
will  have  disproportionately  larger  power,  and  if  the  race 
is  to  become  sober,  moral  and  God-fearing,  we  must  see  to 
it  that  their  leaders  have  proper  moral  and  religious  in 
struction.  The  three  traveling  secretaries  of  the  Young 
Men's  Christian  Association,  Messrs.  Hunton,  Tobias  and 
Jones,  all  of  them  scholarly  and  sane  representatives  of  the 
race,  ought  to  insure  aggressive  policies  for  the  religious 
life  of  the  men  students.  The  Young  Women's  Christian 
Associations  are  not  apt  to  fall  behind  in  this  good  work. 

Conferences  are  now  organized  for  the  training  of  lead 
ers  in  the  student  work.  The  first  summer  conference  on 
the  order  of  the  Northfield  conference  for  white  students 
will  be  held  in  North  Carolina  this  summer. 

Needs  for  City  Work. 

Of  all  the  Negroes,  those  living  in  cities  are  by  far  the 
most  needy  from  the  moral  and  physical  standpoint.  In 
most  cases  their  housing  is  poor ;  ventilation  is  bad ;  usually 
the  sanitation  is  atrocious;  there  is  overcrowding,  under 
feeding,  and  lack  of  all  beauty  in  the  surroundings.  Add 
to  this  the  fact  that  even  their  schools  and  churches  are  often 
located  in  unsanitary,  unsightly  and  noisy  localities  and  the 
picture  of  need  grows  very  dark.  A  modern  Young  Men's 
Christian  Association  building  for  Negroes,  such  as  is  now 
being  erected  in  Atlanta,  Chicago,  Washington  and  other 
cities,  ought  to  help  solve  some  of  the  larger  problems  of 
the  city  negro  life. 

Example  of  a  Cheerful  Home. 

What  has  just  been  said  indicates  one  of  the  chief  prob 
lems  of  negro  progress — the  negro  home.  It  is  all  too 
frequently  simply  a  sleeping  loft,  with  none  of  the  com 
forts  or  attractions  which  should  tend  to  keep  the  boys  and 
girls  off  the  street.  Many  of  the  race  have  so  long  lived 


176    PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

under  such  handicaps  that  they  scarcely  realize  that  any 
thing  else  is  possible.  What  they  need  is  an  example  of 
real  home-keeping.  Not  a  tumbled-down  old  building  aban 
doned  by  some  white  family,  but  a  real  building  where 
things  can  be  kept  clean,  and  where  the  simple,  neat  and 
attractive  furnishings  can  create  a  desire  for  better  things 
at  home.  The  negro  can  have  better  if  he  wants  it.  He 
can  make  good  laboring  wages ;  his  services  are  always  in 
demand ;  but  one  main  difficulty  is  to  get  him  to  want  better 
houses  and  more  comforts.  Many  a  mission  school  has 
done  its  greatest  work  for  the  race,  not  through  the  recita 
tion  room,  but  through  the  atmosphere  of  cleanliness  and 
simple  comfort  which  surrounded  and  pervaded  its  build 
ings.  A  Young  Men's  or  Young  Women's  Christian  Asso 
ciation  building  ought  to,  in  a  larger  sense,  do  this  for  a 
whole  city.  Its  real  effect  should  be  to  create  ideals  and 
stimulate  ambition. 

An  Example  of  Christian  Unity. 

One  of  the  most  serious  handicaps  of  moral  and  reli 
gious  life  among  negroes  lies  in  the  factional  spirit  to  be 
found  in  the  churches.  Here  denominational  jealousies  are 
at  the  highest  tension,  and  even  two  churches  of  the  same 
denomination  may  have  the  bitterest  rivalry.  Those  who 
look  at  the  negro  race  from  afar  and  suppose  them  one 
united  race  in  religion,  politics  and  social  life  are  very  far 
from  being  familiar  with  the  facts.  No  principle  of  organi 
zation  has  yet  been  found  in  the  negro  church  which  is 
able  to  bind  large  groups  together  and  prevent  church  splits. 
The  Young  Men's  and  Young  Women's  Christian  Associa 
tions  have  had  a  great  message  to  white  Christendom  on 
this  point.  Men  who  work  side  by  side  for  men  during  the 
week  are  not  apt  to  be  wholly  sectarian  on  Sunday.  It  does 
not  make  them  less  churchmen,  but  it  makes  them  more 
tolerant  and  more  Christian  churchmen.  This  movement 


WHAT  THE  ASSOCIATIONS  ARE  DOING  177 

established  among  the  Negroes  could  not  fail  to  have  a 
similar  result.  Besides  the  sanity  and  straightforwardness 
of  the  associations  would  do  much  to  overcome  the  over- 
prevalent  emotionalism  too  frequently  found  in  the  negro 
churches.  No  greater  boon  could  be  given  to  the  religious 
life  of  the  race.  Then  there  is  a  great  need  for  real  Bible 
study  among  these  men  and  women.  If  this  is  needed 
among  white  men,  why  should  it  not  be  more  needed  among 
negro  men,  who  have  fewer  teachers,  less  favorable  home 
conditions  and  less  training  which  fits  them  for  a  proper 
understanding  of  the  Bible  when  read?  In  this  field  the 
associations  have  proven  their  unique  ability. 

Hygienic  and  Sanitary  Training  Needed. 

The  actual  physical  exercise  of  a  gymnasium  is  not 
nearly  so  much  needed  by  negro  young  people  as  it  is  by 
whites,  because  the  former  do  not  live  such  a  sedentary  life 
as  do  most  of  the  latter  in  an  ordinary  city.  But  there  is  a 
tremendous  need  that  there  be  someone  in  the  community 
like  a  physical  director  who  is  open  to  all  who  want  to 
know  the  laws  of  healthful  living.  We  have  long  since 
passed  the  time  when  we  consider  the  leading  of  class  drills 
as  the  main  business  of  the  physical  director  of  a  city  asso 
ciation.  He  or  she  is  to  be  a  community  force  making  for 
better  hygienic  customs  and  better  sanitary  conditions.  A 
gymnasium  for  a  negro  association  would  justify  itself  on 
the  one  score  of  baths  alone.  It  is  a  well-known  fact  that 
comparatively  few  negro  homes  have  bath  tubs  or  even 
sufficient  facilities  or  privacy  for  sponge  baths.  Neither 
are  there  any  public  facilities  in  most  of  our  Southern  cities. 
I  have  recently  made  an  investigation  of  the  conditions  of 
recreation,  amusement,  public  parks,  bath  houses,  etc.,  open 
to  Negroes  in  Southern  cities.  I  have  before  me  the  facts 
from  seventeen  typical  Southern  cities,  including  such  places 
as  Richmond,  Charleston,  Raleigh,  Columbia,  S.  C,  Nash- 

—12 


i;8          PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

ville,  Knoxville,  Atlanta,  Augusta,  Columbus,  Ga.,  New  Or 
leans,  Baton  Rouge,  Little  Rock,  Dallas,  Fort  Worth, 
Austin,  etc.  Besides,  I  have  the  facts  for  a  number  of 
smaller  places.  In  these  investigation  cards  there  is  a 
question  asked  about  baths  open  to  negroes,  and  only  one 
city  of  the  entire  list  reports  any  such  accommodations; 
that  city  is  Columbus,  Ga.,  the  baths  being  found  in  the 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association  building.  Columbus, 
by  the  way,  is  the  only  one  of  these  cities  having  a  modern 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association  building  for  colored 
men.  In  every  one  of  the  other  cities  the  nearest  approach 
to  a  bath  house  is  a  barber  shop,  usually  dirty  enough  and 
entirely  too  expensive  to  encourage  habitual  cleanliness. 
This  is  not  simply  a  health  question,  but  a  moral  question 
as  well.  No  man  can  be  his  best  morally  who  does  not  have 
a  chance  to  keep  decently  clean.  It  is  not  unlikely  that 
public  baths  would  pay  for  themselves  through  the  reduc 
tion  of  criminal  expenses. 

An  Athletic  Center. 

It  is  further  true  that  our  Southern  cities  do  not  furnish 
anything  like  adequate  facilities  for  the  social  life  of  the 
Negro.  There  are  very  few  public  parks,  only  four  of  the 
above  cities  reporting  such  parks  for  Negroes,  and  two  or 
three  others  having  private  amusement  parks  open  to 
Negroes  in  the  summer,  but  not  run  for  the  good  of  the  com 
munity,  but  for  the  remuneration  of  the  owner.  It  is  a 
positive  shame  that  in  most  of  our  Southern  cities  Negroes 
are  not  allowed  to  go  to  the  white  parks  and  no  Negro  parks 
are  provided.  If  we  want  separation,  then  we  ought  at 
least  to  be  fair-minded  enough  not  to  take  all  the  parks 
there  are  and  provide  the  Negroes  none. 

This  is  a  most  serious  question.  It  means  that  the  negro 
boy  cannot  play  ball.  It  means  he  cannot  have  any  real 
games,  for  no  game  worth  the  name  can  be  played  on  the 


WHAT  THE  ASSOCIATIONS  ARE  DOING  179 

streets.  Everyone  who  has  studied  just  a  little  child  psy 
chology  knows  well  that  health  and  character  call  for  play. 
It  is  as  difficult  to  build  child  character  without  wholesome, 
clean  sport  as  it  is  to  make  bricks  without  clay  or  straw. 
The  negro  child  is  no  exception  to  this.  This  may  be  one 
reason  why  the  communities  around  schools  are  almost  al 
ways  more  quiet  and  orderly  and  the  children  better  behaved 
because  the  school  grounds  are  almost  always  used  as  a 
park  and  playground  for  the  community. 

Now,  the  Colored  Young  Men's  Christian  Association 
can  help  to  meet  this  pressing  need.  It  cannot  take  the  place 
of  public  parks,  but  it  can  furnish  indoor  and  outdoor  play 
life  to  hundreds  and  hundreds  of  boys,  just  as  the  white 
association  does  for  white  boys.  It  is  none  too  soon  to  start 
this  work  if  we  want  to  save  the  rising  generation  of  boys. 

A  Social  Center. 

Neither  is  there  anything  in  the  way  of  a  social  center 
for  the  Negro  during  his  leisure  hours.  No  man  can  work 
all  the  time.  Every  man  must  have  some  leisure.  These 
unoccupied  hours  are  the  most  dangerous  to  the  average 
Negro  and  by  far  the  most  costly  to  the  community.  It  is 
during  these  hours  that  most  of  the  quarrels  and  fights  take 
place,  and  during  this  time  also  that  most  of  the  schemes 
for  the  worst  crimes  are  conceived.  As  a  matter  of  self- 
defense,  we  must  take  care  of  the  leisure  hours  of  these 
young  people  just  as  we  must  for  any  other  class.  Of  the 
seventeen  cities  investigated,  five  report  one  or  more  the 
atres  for  Negroes,  several  allow  them  in  the  "peanut"  gal 
lery  of  the  white  theatres,  and  the  other  five  report  nothing 
of  this  kind  of  amusement.  Eight  of  these  cities  have 
moving  picture  shows  for  negroes ;  nine  have  none.  Of  the 
nineteen  picture  shows  reported  in  these  eight  cities,  about 
half  are  reported  as  very  low  and  degrading,  having  the 
cheapest  and  vilest  vaudeville  attachments.  One  investi- 


i8o    PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

gator  reports :  "The  principal  places  of  amusement  for  the 
male  population  are  the  saloons,  pool  and  billiard  rooms/' 
In  one  city  "they  are  not  allowed  to  attend  the  picture 
shows,  and  the  one  formerly  run  for  them  has  closed  up." 
Another  investigator  reports:  "Negroes  admitted  into 
'peanut'  gallery  in  white  theatres,  but  better  class  say  they 
will  not  go  unless  for  some  special  attraction,  as  they  are 
put  with  the  lowest  class  of  whites."  Another  reports: 
"Picture  shows  with  vaudeville  attachment  are  rotten,  at 
tended  by  lowest  types  of  all  colors."  Another  investigator, 
this  time  a  college  president,  whose  thorough  sociological 
training  makes  him  a  discriminating  critic,  writes  as  fol 
lows:  "There  have  been  several  moving  picture  shows  in 

exclusively  for  Negroes.  They  have  been  on  the 

vilest  streets  and  have  been  attended  largely  by  the  worst 
element  of  Negroes,  and  from  all  I  can  learn  the  pictures 
have  not  been  of  the  cleanest  sort,  to  say  the  least."  As 
certain  as  the  recreation  hour  determines  the  character  of 
a  man  or  woman,  ?o  certain  are  we  condemning  thousands 
of  these  helpless  people  to  a  life  of  shame  and  crime  by  fail 
ing  to  provide  for  them  or  helping  them  to  provide  for  them 
selves  decent  recreation. 

The  Colored  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  of 
Columbus,  Ga.,  helps  to  meet  this  situation,  as  do  many 
other  associations,  by  giving  wholesome  social  life  in  its 
building.  In  its  small  auditorium  once  or  twice  a  week  it 
has  high-grade  moving  pictures,  which  not  only  entertain, 
but  instruct  and  elevate.  Besides,  in  its  parlors  it  has  a 
piano,  where  the  young  men  can  indulge  their  musical 
abilities.  There  ought  to  be  such  a  social  center,  both  for 
men  and  women,  in  every  Southern  city. 

Any  organization  which  has  shown  its  capacity  to  meet 
jsuch  needs  as  these,  besides  ministering  to  the  deepest  spirit 
ual  needs  of  the  community,  has  a  claim  on  the  hearty 
support  of  every  loyal  Southerner. 


WHAT  THE  ASSOCIATIONS  ARE  DOING  181 

County  Associations  Needed. 

If,  however,  the  students  in  the  negro  schools  and  the 
young  people  in  the  cities  need  associations,  it  may  be 
maintained  that  the  country  Negro  needs  its  work  even  more. 
There  the  humdrum  of  life  eats  like  a  canker  into  the  fibre 
of  ambition;  the  weary  monotony  tends  to  bring  all  exist 
ence  down  to  a  dead  level  of  the  commonplace.  There  are 
no  new  ideals;  there  is  so  little  to  stir  ambition,  so  little 
to  keep  hope  alive.  The  danger  of  the  country  is  that  all 
the  more  active  young  men  and  girls  become  restive  and  go 
away  to  the  city.  The  one  way  to  keep  these  better  young 
people  in  the  country  is  to  make  life  there  more  virile. 

In  this  connection  one  needs  to  refer  to  recreation  again. 
Speaking  of  rural  recreation,  President  Butterfield  says : 

"The  closest  observers  of  rural  life  are  quite  convinced 
that  the  recreations  of  the  country,  not  only  for  children, 
but  for  young  people  and  for  adults  as  well,  are  grossly 
inadequate.  Farmers  themselves  are,  as  a  rule,  apparently 
satisfied  with  the  situation,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  if  one 
should  take  a  census  of  the  recreations  of  the  rural  people, 
a  long  list  could  be  named.  But  it  would  also  appear  that 
recreation  on  the  whole  is  inadequate  in  amount,  in  variety 
and  in  quality ;  that  the  country  people  do  not  take  sufficient 
time  for  play,  and  that  such  recreations  as  exist  are  unor 
ganized  and  are  not  adapted  to  develop  the  best  phases  of 
character.  There  are  notable  exceptions  to  these  general 
truths,  and  there  are  wide  variations  of  conditions,  but  in 
general  it  is  safe  to  say  that  rural  life  is  lacking  in  recrea 
tion."1 

This  statement  is  almost  too  mild  to  apply  to  the  negro 
community,  for  it  can  hardly  be  said  that  a  long  list  of 
amusements  for  them  could  be  named.  In  fact,  I  sent  let 
ters  to  more  than  two  hundred  workers  among  Negroes  in 

The  Country  Church  and  the  Rural  Problem,"  p.  42. 


i82         PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

the  rural  districts  and  was  able  to  get  a  list  of  only  four 
types  of  amusements  from  them  all — hunting  and  fishing, 
visiting  shows  and  fairs,  going  to  church,  and  going  to  town. 
This  shows  the  terrible  poverty  of  this  side  of  the  negro's 
life, 

A  Religious  Demonstrator  Needed. 

In  the  chapter  on  the  negro  farmer,  we  have  shown  what 
marvelous  economic  results  have  come  from  the  work  of 
the  United  States  farm  demonstrator,  who  brings  the  farmer 
new  ideas  and  up-to-date  methods.  In  the  chapter  on  rural 
schools  we  have  shown  similar  splendid  results  coming  into 
school  life  from  the  industrial  supervisor,  who  is  really  an 
educational  demonstrator.  What  we  need  to  complete  the 
circle  is  a  religious  demonstrator  in  the  person  of  a  Young 
Men's  and  Voting  Women's  Christian  Association  County 
Secretary.  This  religious  demonstrator  would  organize  the 
play  life  of  the  community ;  would  initiate  and  foster  com 
munity  meetings,  which  would  create  community  spirit; 
would  help  to  bring  all  the  churches  together  in  a  real 
campaign  for  moral  and  religious  uplift — in  a  word,  he 
would  become  the  moral,  social  and  religious  engineer  of 
the  community.  Already  the  students  of  Pennsylvania 
State  College  have  agreed  to  pay  the  salary  of  such  a 
demonstrator  for  one  county  in  the  South,  and  a  Hampton 
graduate,  scientifically  trained  in  agriculture,  and  hence 
sympathetic  with  the  needs  of  the  rural  Negro,  is  now  get 
ting  ready  to  open  up  the  first  field  of  service.  Many  other 
colleges  ought  to  follow  the  lead  of  Pennsylvania  State 
College  and  have  their  representative  working  in  some  of 
these  local  fields.  I  do  not  know  of  any  place  where  a  thou 
sand  dollars  would  do  so  much  for  the  uplift  of  the  negro 
race  as  if  put  into  the  work  of  a  county  secretary  of  the 
association  in  some  of  the  darker  counties. 


WHAT  THE  ASSOCIATIONS  ARE  DOING  183 

Growing  Interest  Among  White  Men. 

Perhaps  the  most  important  thing,  however,  which  the 
association  is  doing  for  the  Negro  is  not  directly,  but  in 
directly  done.  The  difficulty  for  forty  years  has  been  to 
get  an  intelligent  interest  on  the  part  of  Southern  white 
men  in  this  problem.  I  have  shown  in  the  preceding  chap 
ter  that  the  Southern  man  before  the  war  was  carrying  on 
a  much  more  aggressive  campaign  of  betterment  for  the 
Negro  than  has  ever  been  carried  on  since  the  war.  In 
1860  the  Southern  Methodists  alone  had  327  missionaries 
at  work,  most  of  them  white  men,  and  spent  $86,000  in  that 
year  alone  for  the  uplift  of  slaves.  Now  that  the  church 
has  grown  ten-fold,  it  is  giving  the  paltry  sum  of  $15,000 
to  a  work  for  twice  as  many  people.  Every  other  Southern 
church  is  doing  about  the  same.  Southern  white  men  have 
not  been  interested,  and  this  has  been  the  most  difficult 
aspect  of  the  whole  problem.  After  my  first  volume  for 
the  study  of  negro  life  appeared,  Dr.  Booker  T.  Washing 
ton  wrote  me,  saying  that,  in  his  judgment,  the  association 
was  now  attacking  the  most  important  and  difficult  phase  of 
all  the  work — the  interesting  of  white  men  in  the  problem. 

Succes^  of  the  Attempt. 

No  one  with  the  least  knowledge  of  the  conditions 
hoped — even  in  the  most  sanguine  mood — that  we  should 
find  such  a  splendid  response  from  the  college  men  of  the 
South  as  we  have  found.  We  had  hoped  that  two  thousand 
Southern  college  men  might  be  secured  for  the  study  of  the 
text-book1  in  small  groups  throughout  the  Southern  col 
leges.  What  was  our  amazement  to  find  four  thousand 
studied  it  the  first  year?  During  the  current  year  of 
1911-1912  we  already  have  nearly^  six  thousand  college 
men  studying  this  same  book.  There  were  at  the  Agricul 
tural  and  Mechanical  College  of  Mississippi  one  hundred 

'Negro  Life  in  the  South,"  by  the  author. 


184    PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

and  ninety-eight  men  enrolled  in  the  study^  classes  last  year 
(1910-1911),  and  this  year  (1911-1912)  five  hundred  and 
one  have  enrolled.  In  another  State  institution,  where  some 
of  the  students  thought  men  would  not  study  about  the 
negro's  conditions  and  needs,  a  canvass  was  made,  offering 
the  men  a  choice  between  a  study  of  the  foreigner  and  a 
study  of  the  Negro,  and  at  the  close  of  the  canvass  it  proved 
that  ninety-six  per  cent  of  all  the  men  had  signed  up  to 
study  the  Negro.  Similar  success  has  been  reported  from 
many  colleges. 

A  special  reference  liberary  of  seven  volumes,  entitled 
"Race  Relationships  in  the  South,"  has  been  bound  in  uni 
form  bindings  and  is  being  put  into  most  of  the  college  and 
city  association  libraries,  so  that  sane  and  scientific  in 
formation  is  now  available  to  all  who  are  interested. 

Social  Service. 

But  not  only  are  the  educated  men  of  the  South  willing 
to  study  this  question;  they  are  also  beginning  to  put  the 
knowledge  into  practice.  A  fine  student  in  one  college, 
after  he  had  become  interested  in  the  study,  brought  to 
gether  all  the  negro  cooks,  waiters,  and  janitors  on  the 
campus  into  a  Civic  Righteousness  Club,  where  they  dis 
cussed  the  problems  of  moral  import  to  these  men,  basing 
it  all  on  the  study  of  the  Bible.  The  white  student  was  the 
leader.  In  another  institution  all  the  negro  men  working 
on  the  campus  were  organized  into  a  straight  Bible  class, 
led  by  a  white  student.  In  one  State  university  the  Student 
Secretary  of  the  association  organized  a  civic  club  among 
the  Negroes  in  the  city  where  the  university  was  located. 
The  group,  with  seventy  one  initial  members,  met  in  a  negro 
tailor  shop  and  was  led  by  the  advanced  white  students. 
In  another  college  the  men  are  going  out  to  the 
convict  camp  near  by,  teaching  not  only  the  Bible,  but 
the  simple  rudiments  of  knowledge.  They  also  hold  a  regu- 


WHAT  THE  ASSOCIATIONS  ARE  DOING  185 

lar  religious  service  for  these  men.  In  this  work  they  have 
the  most  hearty  support  and  co-operation  of  the  warden, 
because  he  says  it  makes  the  convicts  less  sullen  and  more 
easily  handled.  In  a  great  many  colleges  the  white  students 
have  organized  Sunday  schools  for  negro  children.  In  other 
places  they  have  taught  normal  classes  of  the  colored  Sun 
day  school  leaders.  Groups  of  white  students  have  taken 
tours  to  leading  negro  schools  and  have  invariably  come 
away  with  a  new  conception  of  the  Negro  and  his  progress. 

Investigations. 

One  of  the  most  important  needs  of  the  times  is  for 
first-hand  information.  Men  become  interested  when  they 
go  and  see  for  themselves.  One  real  tour  of  investigation 
is  better  than  reading  two  books.  Uniform  investigation 
cards  have  been  issued  to  guide  students  in  their  attempt  to 
find  the  facts.  Those  who  are  going  out  have  new  eyes 
because  of  the  study  and  because  of  the  guidance  of  these 
cards.  Dozens  of  Southern  students  are  realizing  the  need 
for  effort,  because  of  such  investigations,  as  they  never 
could  have  realized  them  by  study.  One  worker  for  boys 
in  the  South  said  recently  that  two  years  ago  no  college 
man  would  even  consider  working  with  negro  boys,  but  now 
he  could  get  more  of  the  very  choicest  white  students  than 
he  could  possibly  use. 

A  New  Era. 

This  is  the  dawning  of  a  new  era.  Those  who  know 
must  of  necessity  be  interested,  and  those  who  are  inter 
ested  will  of  necessity  help.  The  need  is  appalling,  but  the 
response  is  becoming  more  and  more  enthusiastic.  God  is 
surely  thrusting  forth  laborers  into  his  harvest.  It  takes 
a  little  courage  still  for  a  white  man  to  throw  himself  into 
this  great  conflict.  There  are  still  those  who  are  not  big 
enough  to  sympathize;  they  are  only  big  enough  to  laugh. 


186    PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

Let  no  man  who  is  afraid  of  his  reputation ;  let  no  man  who 
is  seeking  for  honor ;  let  no  man  who  wants  to  win  applause 
enter  here.  But  if  a  man  has  a  heart  big  enough  to  have  it 
bleed  because  of  the  suffering  of  others ;  if  his  soul  is  sensi 
tive  to  the  bitter  cry  of  hungry  children,  homeless  women, 
struggling  men;  if  he  aspires,  even  in  an  humble  way,  to 
be  in  company  with  those  heroic  souls  who  have  dared  all 
for  a  great  cause — then  here  is  a  place  of  service.  In  this 
service  no  man  need  be  ashamed  of  his  comrades,  for  here 
the  little  men  will  not  dare.  Here  is  Paul,  the  man  who 
knew  no  race;  here  is  Lee,  who  labored  unselfishly  for  his 
own  slaves ;  here  is  Jackson,  than  whom  the  Negro  'had  no 
better  friend ;  yea,  here  is  Jesus  Christ  himself,  with  yearn 
ing  heart,  waiting  to  help  this  belated  race.  If  we  are  big 
enough,  let  us  aspire  to  this  noble  company,  for  of  such 
friends  no  Southern  man  need  be  ashamed. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  187 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Following  the  line  of  the  bibliography  of  "Negro  Life  in  the 
South,"  I  here  add  a  note  about  a  few  additional  volumes  which 
may  help  some  to  select  those  books  most  needed  in  this  study. 
Each  book  has  been  carefully  reviewed  for  this  purpose.  For  fur 
ther  titles  see  bibliography  in  "Negro  Life  in  the  South."— W.  D.  W. 

BRAITHWAITE,  WILLIAM  STANLEY— "Lyrics  of  Life  and  Love." 
Herbert  B.  Turner  &  Co.,  Boston.  A  series  of  poems  of  more 
that  passing  beauty  by  a  Negro  poet. 

BROWN,  WILLIAM  GARRATT — "The  Lower  South  in  American  His 
tory."  The  Macmillan  Company.  A  true  picture  of  the  rise 
of  the  Old  South  and  its  early  influence;  just  a  little  pessimistic 
in  tone. 

CUTLER,  JAMES  ELBERT — "Lynch  Law."  Longmans,  Green  &  Co. 
A  careful  compilation  of  the  facts  of  lynching  and  a  statement 
of  the  causes  and  effects.  It  should  be  read  by  every  South 
ern  man. 

DAVIS,  DANIEL  WEBSTER— "  'Weh  Down  Souf"  The  Helman 
Taylor  Company,  Cleveland.  Poems  of  the  Old  South  of  true 
beauty  and  sentiment. 

ELLWOOL,  CHARLES  A. — "Sociology  and  Modern  Social  Problems." 
American  Book  Company.  Contains  a  very  illuminating  chap 
ter  on  the  "Negro  Problem." 

JOHNSTON,  SIR  HARRY  H.— "The  Negro  in  the  New  World."  The 
Macmillan  Company.  A  compendium  of  facts  about  the  Negro, 
very  suggestive,  and  quite  accurate  on  the  whole,  though  a  bit 
superficial  as  to  Southern  conditions. 

MUNFORD,  BEVERLY  B. — "Virginia's  Attitude  Toward  Slavery  and 
Secession."  One  of  the  best  statements  yet  written  concerning 
the  causes  of  the  Civil  War;  not  belligerent,  but  setting  forth 
simple  facts. 

ODUM,  HOWARD  W. — "Social  and  Mental  Traits  of  the  Negro." 
Longman's  Green  &  Co.  A  statement  based  on  an  extended 
investigation,  but  not  altogether  too  fair-minded.  It  hardly 
lives  up  to  its  title. 

PHILLIPS,  ULRICH  B. — "A  Documentary  History  of  American  In- 


l88    PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 

dustrial  Society,"  Vols.  I  and  II.  Arthur  H.  Clark  Company, 
Cleveland.  Bringing  together  a  great  many  of  the  old  manu 
scripts  bearing  on  plantation  and  frontier  life;  invaluable  to 
the  student  who  wishes  to  get  back  to  first  sources. 

RILEY,  B.  F.— "The  White  Man's  Burden."  Published  by  the  author, 
Birmingham,  Ala.  A  very  sane  and  sympathetic  discussion  of 
the  negro  question  from  a  Southern  man's  standpoint. 

STEPHENSON,  GILBERT  THOMAS — "Race  Distinctions  in  American 
Law."  D.  Appleton  &  Co  A  clear,  unbiased  and  helpful  state 
ment  of  just  the  distinction — and  at  times  discriminations — 
made  throughout  the  United  States  in  the  laws  governing  race 
relationships. 

WASHINGTON,  BOOKER  T—  "The  Story  of  the  Negro,"  Vols  I  and  II. 
Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.  A  history  of  the  Negro,  past  and  pres 
ent,  written  in  a  most  interesting  and  readable  style.  It  cannot 
fail  to  %be  of  great  service  to  all  who  want  to  know  the  negro 
as  a  race. 

WASHINGTON,  BOOKER  T. — "My  Larger  Education."  Doubleday, 
Page  &  Co.  A  continuation  of  the  life  story  of  the  author, 
written  in  that  easy  conversational  style  which  makes  it  very 
readable.  Like  everything  else  Dr.  Washington  has  written,  it 
is  fair-minded  and  will  give  ample  returns  for  reading. 


NOTE:   The  books  in  the  foregoing  list  may  be  secured  through 
ASSOCIATION  PRESS,  124  East  28th  Street,  New  York 


INDEX 


189 


INDEX 


Agricultural    Conditions    in    the 
Old   South,  94-95;   amount  of 
land   cultivated,  96;   one   crop 
system,    102-103 
B 

Banks,  Charles,  46-47 

Baptists,    150 

Birth  Rate,  66 

Boyd,  Dr.  R.  H.,  42 

Butterfield,  Pres.,  106 


Churches  Southern — Larger  ef 
forts  needed,  164 

Carver,  Geo.   W.,  45 
D 

Darwin's  "Origin  of  Species,"  13 

Davis,  Jackson,   137 

Death  rate,  65;  explanation  of, 
67;  responsibility  for,  73-74 

Demonstration  Farming,  109;  in 
Alabama,  no;  Effects  on  com 
munity  life,  114;  Negroes 
eager  for,  in;  results  among 
Negroes,  111-113 

Dillard,  Dr.  Jas.  R,  137 

Dolls,  Negro,  42 

Douglas,    Frederick,   44 

Dowd,  Prof.,  18,  23,  29 

Dunbar,  Paul  Laurence,  26,  39, 
48,  53 

E 

Economic  progress,  111-113; 
need  for  spiritualization,  115 

Environment,  fitness  for,  14,  15; 
racial,  14 

Episcopalians,  150-151 


Farm  life,  enemies  of,  97;  isola 
tion,  104;  Relation  of  county 
Young  Men's  Christian  Asso 
ciation  to,  181 


Farm  ownership,  107;  demon 
stration  work;  struggle  for 
ownership,  105 

Fiske,  John,  16,  22 


Gloucester  County,  24,  56 

H 

Hampton,  31,  40 

Health,  care  of,  67,  69.  special 
diseases,  70;  Relation  to 
whites,  74;  sanitation,  122,  125 

Henrico   County,   Va.,   135,   138^. 

Hunton,   W.    A.,    171 

Homes,    136 

Hook  Worm,  122,  125 

Hospital   facilities,  68 

Howells,  Wm.  Dean,  49 

Imagination,   22 

Individualism,  35 

Industrial    work,    134,    147,    141 ; 

effect     on      attendance,      138; 

effect  on  the  community,  I35/.; 

supervision    of,    137;    training, 

160 

J 

Jeane's  foundation,   137^. 


Leadership  of  unmixed  ances 
try,  43 

Examples  of  :Maj.  R.  R.  Moton, 
44;  Charles  Banks,  46,  47 

Edward  Wilbur  Blyden,  56; 
Wm.  Washington  Brown,  56; 
George  W.  Carver,  45;  Lott 
Cary,  56;  George  W.  Clinton, 
54;  Alexander  Crummel.  56; 
D.  W.  Davis,  56;  Paul  Lau 
rence  Dunbar,  48,  53 ;  Lucy 
Laney,  56;  M.  C.  B.  Mason, 
56;  Isaiah  Montgomery,  46, 


joo 


PRESENT  FORCES  IN  NEGRO  PROGRESS 


47;  Joseph  C.  Price,  45;  Vir 
ginia  Randolph,  56;  J.  H. 
Smith,  56;  Bishop  Tyree,  C 
T.  Walker,  53 ;  T.  C.  Walker, 
56;  Georgia  Washington,  56; 
Phillis  Wheatley,  48;  Mr. 
Wood,  56;  R.  R.  Wright,  55 

M 

Methodists,  early  relations  con 
cerning  slavery,  148;  missions, 
150 

Missionaries  to  the  Negroes,  152 
Montgomery,    Isaiah,  46,   47 
Moorland,  J.  E.,  41,  171 
Moravian  Missions,  149,  150 
Moton,  Maj.  R.  R.,  24,  44 
Music,  Negro,  31,  40 

O 

Odum,  H.  W.,  21 
"Old-time  Negro" 


Page,  Thos.  Nelson,  26,  61 

Penn  School  (see  also  St. 
Helena  Island),  40,  160 

Population,  increase  by  decades, 
62;  distribution,  71,  76  (see 
also  maps  7§/:.)  movement 
cityward,  64;  movement  to  the 
North,  63;  rate  of  increase  in 
the  South,  63;  factor  in  the 
future  redistribution,  71,  72; 
statistical  table,  77 
Presbyterians,  151 

Price,  Jos.   C,  45 

Progress,  signs  of,  183?.,  109- 
112,  I3I/. 

R 

Racial  characteristics,  (see  char 
acteristics) 

Race  consciousness,  36;  growth 
of,  38;  race  sufficiency,  38 

Race  pride,  36;  basis  of,  38;  ap 
preciation  of  their  past,  39; 
collection  of  books  and  pic 
tures,  41 ;  business  interests, 
41 ;  growth  in,  38 

Randolph  Virginia,    138 

Reconstruction,  evil  effects  of, 
152-154 


Recreation,  athletic  center  need 
ed,  178;  playgrounds  needed, 
125;  social  centers  needed,  179 

Religious  training,  147-149; 
method  of  work,  152;  planta 
tion  owners  interested,  147- 
149 

Rosenwald,  Julius,  benefactions 
to  associations,  172 


Sanitation,   122-125,   177 

School  funds,  raised  by  the  Ne 
groes,  131 ;  raised  from  taxa 
tion,  132-134 

School,  rural,  105 ;  course  of 
study,  134  /.;  enrollment  in, 
119;  hopeful  features,  131  f.; 
opportunity  of,  119;  super 
vision,  126,  136/7  weakness  of, 
120-130 

Segregation,  37 

Self  control,  lack  of,  16 

'Smith,  Prof.  41 

Smith,  Dr.  W.   B.,  61 

Social    investigation,   185 

Social   service,    184 

Society  for  the  propagation  of 
the  Gospel,  147 

Stephenson,  G.  T.,  21 


St.  Helena  Island,  27,  30,  40, 
119,  160 

T 

Tate,  Prof.  W.  K.,  120,  128,  136 

Teachers,  salary,  126-127;  prep 
aration,  127,  142 

Tenant  system,  97 ;  advantages 
of,  98;  disadvantages  of,  99; 
tenants,  types  of,  98,  102;  ten 
antry  and  whiskey,  100 

Thomas,  Wm.  H.,  23 

Tuskegee,  31,  40,  45 

Unity  of  the  human  race,   1-2, 

16,  32 

W 

Walker,  Dr.  C.  T.,  24,  53 
Walker,  T.  C.,  24,  56 
Washington,  Dr.   B.   T.,  24,  29, 

37,  38,  40,  41,  44,  61 


INDEX 


191 


Wheatley,  Phillis,  12,  48 
Wilcox,   Walter  R,  61 
Women  as  bread  winners,  69 
Wright,   Arthur  D.,    137,   138 
Wright,    Hon.    Seaborn,   20 


Young  Men's  Christian  Associ 


ation — County  secretaries  need 
ed,  182;  examples  of  unity, 
176;  first  organization,  169; 
first  secretaries  of,  171 ;  need 
of  the  work,  174,  175 
Young  Women's  Christian  Asso 
ciation — Present  policy,  173- 
174 


14  DAY  USE 

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